An Intro to Canine Careers:
There is a plethora of jobs that canines have performed with or for humans. Some of these jobs are now so engrained into certain breeds that we consider them "herding dogs" or "guard dogs" or "hunting dogs." Aside from these innate characteristics, dogs can also be trained into careers, such as sniffing out contraband, alerting a deaf handler to noises, searching out and rescuing people in times of need, and so much more. AAEC's Canine Education Program focuses on training service dogs (SDs), therapy dogs, scent-detection dogs, and search and rescue dogs. |
Luci helping her handler by pushing a drawer closed with her paw.
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Types of Working Dogs:
Emotional Support Animals: provide emotional support and comfort to their owners. They do not necessarily need to have undergone any training, and are also not permitted to have public access, but are permitted to be in a person's own home.
Service Dogs (SD): The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) defines a service dog as those that are "individually trained to do work or perform tasks for people with disabilities." Service Dogs are allowed to accompany their handlers in public, and will continue to perform their specified tasks and assist their handler when doing so. They are protected in public areas by the ADA, and protected in Arizona by ARS 11-1024. Service dogs have the remarkable ability to provide increased independence, quality of life, and service by performing many different tasks. Some of the most common types of SDs are listed below:
Therapy Dogs: are not trained for a single specific individual. Instead, they are trained to provide comfort to many people in specific public institutions. For example, a therapy dog may accompany it's handler to a hospital or a nursing home where it will interact with many individuals, serving the public in an emotional manner.
Other Types of Working Dogs:
Emotional Support Animals: provide emotional support and comfort to their owners. They do not necessarily need to have undergone any training, and are also not permitted to have public access, but are permitted to be in a person's own home.
Service Dogs (SD): The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) defines a service dog as those that are "individually trained to do work or perform tasks for people with disabilities." Service Dogs are allowed to accompany their handlers in public, and will continue to perform their specified tasks and assist their handler when doing so. They are protected in public areas by the ADA, and protected in Arizona by ARS 11-1024. Service dogs have the remarkable ability to provide increased independence, quality of life, and service by performing many different tasks. Some of the most common types of SDs are listed below:
- Allergy Alert: trained to alert handler to potential life-threatening allergens in food.
- Autism Assistance: assist individuals with autism. Common tasks may be helping to interrupt self-harming behaviors, or calming/grounding the handler in times of need.
- Diabetic Alert: a common type of medical alert dog, trained to help detect and alert to high/low blood sugar in a diabetic individual.
- Guide Dogs: provide assistance for visually impaired individuals. Common tasks may include physically guiding their handler, or alerting handler to objects in environment (such as a curb, which could be dangerous.)
- Hearing Dogs: assist hearing impaired individuals. Common tasks include alerting to sounds in the environment, for example phones ringing, alarms going off, etc.
- Medical Alert: trained to alert handler to physiological changes in body, and assist handler in times of need.
- Mobility Support: provide assistance to individuals that may be mobility impaired. Common tasks include retrieving objects, providing physical support/balance for brief periods of time, assisting with pushing buttons, opening doors, etc.
- Seizure Assistance: trained to attend to individuals with epilepsy. Common tasks include retrieving medication, providing stimulation to pull handler out of seizure, or retrieving help.
- Psychiatric Assistance: assists handler with a mental disability. Trained to help calm panic or anxiety attacks, and interrupt self-harming behavior.
- Wheelchair Assistance: a common type of mobility support dog that is trained to assist a handler that is wheelchair-bound.
Therapy Dogs: are not trained for a single specific individual. Instead, they are trained to provide comfort to many people in specific public institutions. For example, a therapy dog may accompany it's handler to a hospital or a nursing home where it will interact with many individuals, serving the public in an emotional manner.
Other Types of Working Dogs:
- Military Dogs: trained to assist branches of the military, especially in scent detection, protection, guarding, and search and rescue.
- Police Dogs: trained to assist police handlers in scent detection, search and rescue, detaining criminals, and protection.
- Scent Detection Dogs: trained to find contraband items, bed bugs, cancer, explosives, and other objects by scent.
- Search and Rescue Dogs: trained to locate missing persons, especially in times of natural disasters.