Service dogs are trained to assist individuals with disabilities by performing tasks to mitigate the effects of their disabilities. Guide dogs help blind or visually impaired individuals navigate and alert deaf individuals to sounds in their environment. Service dogs can also retrieve dropped items, wake individuals from sleep, and remind owners to take medication for psychiatric disabilities like depression. Effective service dogs possess traits like alertness, energy, and an ability to focus on their owner. While expensive to purchase fully trained, individuals can also work with experienced trainers to teach adopted dogs disability-specific tasks.

1. By: Cassidy, Sydney, and Hailey
*Service Dogs

2. *What Service Dogs
Are

3. Disabled individuals can obtain a service
dog through organizations that train and place
these dogs.
The Americans with Disabilities Act defines
a service animal as "any guide dog, signal dog, or
other animal individually trained to do work or
perform tasks for the benefit of an individual with a
disability..."
Service dogs can guide blind individuals,
alert hearing impaired people, pull wheelchairs,
protect a person who experiences a seizure and
perform other specialized tasks.

4. *Service Dogs for the
Blind

5. Guide Dogs for the Blind assist’s sight-impaired individuals as
they navigate the steps needed to get a guide dog. After the
organization approves an application, they will assign a dog and
create a training course that fits the individual's needs.
Training includes formal training and caring for the dog.
Students may undertake the training sessions at either of Guide Dogs
for the Blind's two campuses, one in San Rafael, Calif. and one in
Boring, Ore.
The organization may also facilitate training in an individual's
home, when necessary. The organization provides the dog and its
equipment, transportation and room and board at no cost to the
student. In addition, regional field staff’s, including veterinarians, are
available for post-program assistance.
Probably the most familiar type of service dog is the guide
dog that is trained to help blind or visually impaired people.

6. *Service Dogs for the
Deaf

7. A service dog that assists deaf people is also known as a ‘hearing
dog.’ These dogs play a significant role in the lives of many deaf
people. They enable members of the deaf community to have more
freedom and feel secure as they travel to various places. In addition,
the freedom offered to a person by a hearing dog allows him or her
to stay connected with deaf culture by meeting others with the same
experiences. The following looks at the role of these dogs within the
lives of deaf individuals as well as the particular qualities that make
for an effective service dog.
In order to be as independent as possible, a person with deafness
needs to be aware of what is going on in the environment around
him or her. Years of deaf education teach deaf people about the
various types of communication, but many still need help in
becoming independent.

8. What types of qualities are found in a service dog
that assists people in the deaf community? This is a
common question asked of many organizations that
train service dogs for deaf people. There are a few
qualities that make a dog a likely candidate to
become a hearing dog. An effective hearing dog is
alert, possesses a reasonable amount of energy, and
has the ability to focus on its owner.
Finally, a service or hearing dog certainly doesn’t
have to be a purebred to be useful to a deaf person
in his or her daily life.

9. *Service Dogs for
Depression

10. Have you ever wondered how a dog might help a person living
with a psychiatric disability? A psychiatric service dog is a
specific type of service dog trained to help their owner with a
psychiatric disability, such as post-traumatic stress disorder,
depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety, or schizophrenia. Like other
types of service dogs, a psychiatric service dog helps its owner
mitigate his or her disability through trained work and tasks such
as:
•picking up/retrieving objects or aiding with mobility when the owner is
dizzy or has a tremor from medication
•waking the owner if the owner sleeps through alarms or cannot get
himself/herself out of bed

11. •alerting to and/or responding to episodes (i.e.
mood changes, panic attacks, oncoming anxiety,
etc.)Alert the person.
•reminding the owner to take medication if the
owner cannot remember on his/her own, or with
the use of an alarm
•alerting to and/or distracting the owner from
thoughts
•as well as other tasks directly related to the
owner’s disability

12. Purchasing a psychiatric service dog is expensive and the
use to many people living with a psychiatric disability. A
psychiatric service dog can cost between $10,000 and
$20,000 because the dogs chosen for psychiatric service
dogs must have a certain temperament and then it takes
months or years to train that dog for specific tasks. An
other is to find a trainer experienced in training service
dogs and work with that trainer to train a dog for specific
tasks related to the psychiatric disability. Pets don’t
always make good service dogs, so it may be better to
adopt a dog and work with a trainer on the specific tasks
related to the disability. Look for a trainer who has
experience training assistance/hearing dogs and is also and
obedience trainer.