Service Dog Work
Service dogs are individually trained to perform tasks that help a person with a disability in everyday life. Tasks may include guiding someone with vision loss, alerting someone to important sounds, retrieving needed items or performing specific assistance related to a psychiatric disability. Providing comfort through presence alone is different from trained service work.
Unlike therapy dogs, whose visits focus on interaction with other people, service dogs focus on the needs of the person they assist. Training must match that person’s requirements and the environments where the dog will work.
This breed category identifies potential service-dog prospects, not trained or qualified service dogs. Breed alone cannot establish suitability: each dog requires individual assessment, appropriate training and a suitable match with its handler.
