The Gift of Help: Training Your Own Service Dog

Rookie at SFO awaiting his next task. photo: Angela Gardner

Service dogs give the gift of themselves every day, performing specialized tasks to assist people with disabilities. 

Unfortunately, the wait for a trained service dog from an organization can be quite lengthy and the cost for acquiring an already-trained dog can be high. Instead, some people choose to go the owner-trainer route, in which a person with a disability trains their own dog for service work (this can also be expensive as training may take years, but is generally less costly than acquiring a pre-trained dog). In addition, an owner who trains their own dog for service work is often empowered by being part of the process, a form of independence many find rewarding. 

Of course, the owners don’t do this alone. Rather they rely on service dog coaches to provide training and support as they train their dog to perform the needed tasks. Service dog coaches can help educate an owner on how to select an appropriate service dog, how to meet the behavioral needs of the dog, and how to train the service dog to behave in public.

As a certified service dog coach myself, I’ve experienced firsthand the rewards of assisting an owner-trainer team and seeing the impact the dog has on the daily life of the person with a disability. When working with an owner-trainer client, I first identify what task(s) the dog needs to learn to assist the owner. Tasks are categorized by the type of disability they are intended to help with. However, it’s not uncommon for a person to have more than one disability, or a single disability that affects them in multiple ways. In that case, the dog must be trained for more than one task. 

For example, mobility service dogs can be trained to help with a wide variety of disabilities that impair a person’s ability to move; these dogs may perform such tasks as opening and closing doors, or retrieving items for their owner. Hearing dogs are trained to respond to certain sounds and alert the owner. For people with anxiety, PTSD, or traumatic brain injuries, the dog may be trained to alert to changes in the owner that signal anxiety and to help calm them. 

The other key part of service dog training involves public access. Service dogs must learn to behave appropriately amid multiple distractions in a variety of public settings such as airports, stores, and public transportation. They need to be able to focus on, and respond to, their owner and perform their service tasks in challenging environments. 

For this reason, service dog coaches spend a lot of time evaluating and assessing prospective service dogs to make sure they are suitable to be in public spaces where dogs aren’t usually allowed. In fact, one of the most critical aspects of public access training is when to have a dog start to work in public areas. The guidance of a professional trainer is key here, and the dogs need to be continually assessed before and after going into public spaces as they train.

Training your own dog to be a service dog can be challenging. It requires time and dedication, and not all dogs are appropriate candidates. But working with a certified service dog coach can help a person with a disability become part of a successful owner-trainer team. When done right, it’s a rewarding experience and a gift to all involved.