What is the minimum age for a service dog? Here’s What to Expect

Step 1: Determining and Knowing the Kind of Dog

Every dog strain is capable of service work! Usually, the common strains are the Golden Retrievers, Labrador Retrievers, German Shepherds, Bully Breeds, Poodles, Huskies, and many more. All types of dogs can become services dogs. It will depend on their potential in offering various kind of service.

Moreover, policies on service dog exclude restriction on dog strains or discrimination on their weight. Awareness of your dog’s medical status is important to verify if his medical condition and the years of his life are applicable to do the task. It’s very crucial to learn your dog’s status to avoid giving stress to a service animal’s health and also to its owner’s mindset. It is also vital to identify your type of personality of your dog to check if he or she has the right attitude for service work.

Step 3: Educating Your Service Dog

You need to invest your time and money in training your service dog. Putting in enough time to train your future service dog is a crucial step. The international standards suggest approximately 120 hours over six months of training. However, the United States has no minimum time requisition for training to have a legitimate service dog certification. It is best recommended that at least 30 hours of it should be spent in public.

The very vital job for you to educate your service dog is instructing the particular skill they will be doing to guide with your condition. These tasks are feeling a medical warning, triggering action during a manic state, or grounding in public places.

Step 5: Certifying and Qualifying

The certification for service dog legitimacy and determination is not a requisite in the United States. Sadly, most working staffs in public and some areas will still ask for it. To make you feel at ease with it, familiarize yourself in presenting valid papers as proof that your dog has proper training for the service.

Verbal confirmation and document presentation of your dog’s training is a legal way to accommodate your service dog. Service dogs offer assistance for individuals with compromised physical or mental state for them to enter public places like resto’s, grocery stores, hotels, and malls. Very vital to learn these processes for your benefit and the people around you.

Below are the steps to acquire a certificate for service dog legitimacy.

Service dog laws/ everything you need to know