Basic Knowledge

This Service Dog Training Program is designed for individuals who are not professional trainers or staff members of an organization who are planning to self-train their own service dogs. You can get started as soon as you have acquired a suitable dog of any age. This course will take you through the first stage of laying a firm foundation for the more complicated tasks and responsibilities to come. The course will enable the transition of your dog from “Service Dog in Training” to a fully-fledged Service Dog.

We suggest you and your dog follow the 10-Week Training Course as closely as you can, but this does not mean that the course has to be completed in 10 weeks! Please make sure that your dog has learned the content of the current day’s session before moving on. It will defeat the purpose if you go too fast for him, so just repeat the unit for any day(s) that he has trouble with, and move on to the next day’s lesson when he is ready. You also need to keep challenging your dog so he doesn’t get bored. Do plenty of reviews and practice what you have previously taught him, but when he demonstrates that he knows something, move on and teach something new. It may all seem like a lot for you both to learn and put together, but don’t worry, everything will soon start to fall into place.