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Our owner-trained service dog program begins with a comprehensive temperament evaluation and initial assessment of your dog. This step ensures that your dog possesses the focus, confidence, and temperament needed to succeed in service work. Once your dog passes this initial evaluation, we create a customized training plan tailored to their personality, age, and the specific needs of their future handler. This foundational assessment ensures that training is both safe and effective, setting the stage for a successful partnership.

Training progresses in phased, developmentally appropriate stages. We start by reinforcing basic obedience, impulse control, and strong handler communication, ensuring your dog responds reliably in everyday situations. From there, we gradually introduce more complex exercises designed to strengthen confidence and adaptability in a variety of environments. Exposure to public settings, environmental enrichment, and structured socialization continues throughout this phase, ensuring your dog remains calm, attentive, and prepared for the challenges of service work.

Once your dog is ready, they enter advanced, task-specific training tailored to their capabilities and your needs as a handler. This phase emphasizes consistency, reliability, and accuracy to maintain motivation and confidence. This progress is carefully monitored to ensure they meet the standards required for certification. Throughout the program, we maintain a strong focus on health, mental stimulation, and emotional balance, producing dogs who are not only skilled but also resilient and capable of thriving in demanding public environments.

By the end of the program, your dog will have completed all three CGC levels, passed a rigorous public access test, and mastered the necessary behaviors to serve as a dependable service dog. This structured, phased approach ensures that your dog transitions smoothly into their role, providing consistent support, confidence, and independence while maintaining a strong bond with their handler.

Our training program is built on consistent communication and well-rounded learning opportunities for both dogs and their handlers. To ensure every team receives the best possible foundation, we require a minimum of one group class attendance each month at a local training location. Group classes provide valuable exposure to different environments, people, and other dogs, which helps strengthen obedience, social skills, and focus around distractions. They also allow handlers to practice in a supportive community setting while learning from others working toward similar goals.

In addition to group work, we require at least two virtual update sessions each month. These sessions are designed to maintain steady progress between in-person meetings, provide ongoing feedback, and allow us to address any challenges quickly. Virtual updates keep training consistent and flexible, ensuring the handler always has professional guidance no matter their schedule or location. They also give us an opportunity to track the dog’s progress closely and adjust training plans as needed.

To round out the program, we require a minimum of one individual in-person training session per month. These sessions provide the focused one-on-one time needed to refine skills, address specific behaviors, and customize training to the dog and handler’s unique needs. By combining group classes, virtual updates, and private sessions, our program ensures a balanced and effective training approach that maximizes success for every dog and handler team.

All of our owner service dogs complete the full spectrum of Canine Good Citizen (CGC) certifications, including CGC, CGCA, and CGCU. This structured progression ensures that each dog demonstrates foundational obedience, advanced public behavior, and the ability to maintain focus and composure in complex, real-world environments. By adhering to this documented standard, we guarantee that your dogs possess the temperament, reliability, and adaptability required for professional service work.

Achieving all three CGC levels reflects our commitment to highly consistent training practices. Dogs that meet these standards have been systematically evaluated and reinforced under controlled conditions, providing handlers with the assurance that their service dog is socially competent, mentally resilient, and fully prepared to perform reliably in daily life. This level of preparation sets our dogs apart as professional, dependable partners capable of supporting a wide range of handler needs.

All of our owner service dogs undergo a rigorous 50-step public access test, designed to ensure they perform reliably in a wide range of real-world environments. This comprehensive evaluation covers obedience, social behavior, and the dog’s ability to remain calm and focused amid distractions. By requiring your dogs to successfully complete this structured test, we ensure that every service dog is prepared to navigate public spaces safely, confidently, and consistently.

To maintain the highest standards of reliability, our public access test is administered annually. This retesting ensures that each dog’s skills remain sharp and dependable over time, and that their behavior continues to meet professional service dog standards. By integrating this ongoing evaluation into our training program, we provide handlers with the assurance that your service dog is not only highly trained but also consistently capable of performing in any environment, setting your dogs apart as true professional partners.

Our owner service dogs can be taught to assist individuals with a variety of needs, including PTSD or psychiatric conditions, mobility challenges, and medical concerns. Each dog receives customized training to provide dependable support in daily life, helping their handler feel more secure, confident, and independent. By tailoring tasks to the individual, we ensure that every service dog is prepared to meet the unique requirements of their future partner with reliability and consistency.

It's important to note that we are mindful about the safety and practicality of the tasks we teach. For that reason, we do not train dogs to perform certain behaviors such as getting help in public, bracing, or tethering. Additionally, we only train medical response tasks unless a dog naturally demonstrates an ability to alert to medical issues. In those cases, we carefully shape and track the alert to ensure it becomes consistent, reliable, and beneficial to the handler.

All dogs considered for our owner service dog program undergo a thorough and multi-faceted evaluation to assess temperament, behavior, and existing training. This assessment examines key traits such as focus, confidence, adaptability, impulse control, and socialization skills, ensuring that each dog demonstrates the emotional stability and resilience necessary to succeed in service work. Additionally, we evaluate the dog’s current level of obedience, responsiveness to cues, and ability to remain calm in a variety of controlled environments. Only dogs that meet our high standards for both temperament and training are accepted into the program, guaranteeing that they have the potential to develop into reliable, professional service partners.

The evaluation process is designed to identify both strengths and areas for development, allowing us to create a tailored training plan that addresses the dog’s individual needs while maximizing their potential. By understanding the dog’s personality, learning style, and behavioral tendencies from the outset, we can implement a structured, phased approach that sets the stage for successful public access, task training, and long-term partnership with the handler. This careful screening also protects the safety and effectiveness of the program, ensuring that every dog entering the program is equipped to thrive under professional guidance.

By rigorously assessing temperament and training level before enrollment, we provide owners with confidence and clarity that their dog is ready to embark on a structured, professional training journey. This initial evaluation forms the foundation for a successful transformation from a well-loved pet into a dependable, highly trained service dog capable of meeting the unique needs of its handler with consistency, reliability, and confidence.

The training timeline for dogs in our owner service dog program can average between 6 and 24 months, depending on the dog’s existing training, temperament, and experience. Dogs with a strong foundation in obedience and socialization may progress more quickly, while others may require additional time to master advanced skills and public access readiness. This time frame reflects the extensive care, guidance, and structured training required to ensure each dog becomes a reliable, confident, and fully capable service partner.

Throughout the training process, our team provides regular updates and guidance to owners, offering transparency and support at every stage. This allows handlers to follow their dog’s progress, celebrate milestones, and understand the steps being taken to prepare their dog for public environments and task-specific responsibilities. By investing this time and attention, we ensure that every dog entering service is professionally trained, dependable, and ready to provide long-term support to their handler.

Once a service dog has graduated from our program, our commitment to the handler and their partner continues for life. We provide lifetime support, ensuring handlers have access to guidance, advice, and training assistance whenever questions or challenges arise. To maintain the highest standards of public performance, teams are required to retake the public access test annually, ensuring the dog’s skills and reliability remain consistent in real-world environments.

In addition to yearly evaluations, we schedule check-ins every six months to review progress, reinforce training, and provide support tailored to the team’s evolving needs. These structured follow-ups allow us to monitor the partnership, address any issues early, and ensure that both handler and dog continue to thrive together. By combining ongoing guidance with mandatory annual assessments, we help maintain long-term success, confidence, and safety for every team that graduates from our program.

Our program offers continuous training opportunities to ensure both handlers and service dogs maintain peak performance throughout their partnership. Graduates of our program are invited to join ongoing classes, workshops, and refresher sessions designed to reinforce skills, address new challenges, and provide exposure to a variety of real-world scenarios. These opportunities help keep the team confident, consistent, and adaptable in everyday life.

We also provide options for retraining specific behaviors as needed. Whether a handler wants to refine an existing skill, introduce new techniques, or address challenges that arise over time, our team is available to provide personalized guidance and hands-on support. This ensures that both dog and handler continue to grow together and maintain the reliability expected of a professional service team.

Beyond classes and retraining, our program offers 24/7 access to professional support. Handlers can reach out at any time with questions or concerns, receiving timely guidance from experienced trainers who understand the nuances of service dog partnerships. By offering ongoing education, retraining, and continuous support, we ensure that every handler and their service dog have the tools and confidence needed for long-term success.

All handlers of our owner service dogs are required to retake the public access test each year to ensure that both dog and handler maintain the highest standards of performance in public settings. This annual evaluation verifies that the team continues to demonstrate reliability, composure, and appropriate public behavior, reflecting the rigorous training and professional expectations of our program.

The tests are held locally four times per year, providing multiple opportunities for handlers to schedule their evaluation within a convenient timeframe. Participation in the test requires travel to our location, allowing our trainers to personally assess the team in a controlled and standardized environment.

Completing the public access test annually is mandatory for all handlers, reinforcing accountability, consistency, and skill retention. By maintaining this requirement, we ensure that every service dog and handler team remains confident, capable, and fully prepared to navigate public spaces safely and effectively, upholding the professional standards of our program.

When a service dog reaches the end of their working career, we provide guidance for a smooth and respectful retirement process. Retired dogs have earned a life of comfort and care. This ensures the dog’s well-being while honoring the handler’s unique bond and long-term needs.

Once the dog is retired, we require that the service vest and any other identifying equipment be returned. This helps maintain the integrity of the program and ensures that retired dogs are no longer presented as active service animals, keeping public safety and professional standards intact.

Our retirement policies are designed to provide both the handler and the dog with clarity, support, and a smooth transition. By planning for retirement proactively, we ensure that every dog completes their career with dignity, while handlers receive guidance on continuing to enjoy their partnership safely or welcoming a retired dog into their home as a pet.