Service Dog Skills

I’ll start out by saying, “I am vehemently opposed to fake service dogs!”  That being said, I’ve been asked by a member who will be undergoing spinal surgery to help teach some basic skills that an assistance dog should have.

Service dogs are specifically trained to perform a service.  Oftentimes this will be retrieving something for someone in a wheelchair.  In this lesson I show the basics of teaching a dog to hold various textures, retrieving an object, picking it up if it gets dropped, directed retrieve – I point at something and you get exactly that and opening a heavy refrigerator door.  I hope this skills will prove helpful to anyone helping train an assistance / service type dog, but remember, don’t try to pass your dog off as a service dog and bring them to public places and especially on airplanes.  I too wish the laws were different, but people with real service dogs need to respect and attention they get because of their situation.  Nothing I hate more than people who pass their dogs off as fake service dogs!