Psychiatric service dog training and mobility service dog training are great careers that prepare you to help both dogs and their owners.
As an experienced dog trainer, you know that a well-trained canine is more likely to have a forever home. By becoming a service dog trainer, you can use your experience to give a qualified dog a home for life and improve – or even save- a person’s life. From hearing dogs to medical alert dogs to PTSD dogs, you can train canines to perform specific-disability tasks and help those who need it most.
1 Hawryluk, M. (2022, February 16). Demand for service dogs unleashes a ‘wild west’ market. Kaiser Health News. Retrieved May 23, 2022, from https://khn.org/news/article/demand-for-service-dogs-unleashes-a-wild-west-market/
2 Parenti, L., Wilson, M., Foreman, A. M., Wirth, O., & Meade, B. J. (2015). Selecting Quality Service Dogs: Part 1: Morphological and Health Considerations. The APDT chronicle of the dog, 2015 (summer), 71–77.
While approximately 61 million Americans live with disabilities, fewer than 1 percent (about 500,000) have service dogs. In Canada, the fewer than 1 percent holds true as well; there are about 55,000 service dogs compared to 6.2 million disabled persons. This is due to various reasons, including lack of availability and high costs. In addition, because people are living longer, the need for service dogs and their trainers will continue to grow. By becoming a service dog trainer, you can help boost the number of service dogs available (thus lessening the average 3-year wait time) while ensuring you have a viable career.
Professional service dog trainers earn money while helping those who need assistance the most. For many, this represents the best of all possible worlds.
Many people dream of being their own boss. This can become your reality because there are relatively low start-up costs necessary to create a service dog training business of your own. With ABC, you will not only learn how to become a service dog trainer, but you will also be given in-depth information on how to start a service dog training business.
Upon completion of this program, graduates will be credentialed as Animal Behavior College, Service Dog Trainers (ABCSDT). They will be equipped to offer their service dog training skills and knowledge to established assistance dog organizations, as well as primed to start their own business. ABCSDTs can also continue their education in advanced service dog training methods to teach dogs to help their handlers with a wide variety of physical and psychiatric disorders.
For example, service dog trainers can work for organizations that train: hearing dogs, mobility service dogs, PTSD Veteran service dogs, psychiatric service dogs, autism service dogs, diabetic-alert service dogs, medical-alert service dogs and seizure-alert service dogs.
Other possible employment occupations include:
Please note that no school can offer any type of guarantee as to whether a graduate will find employment. Animal Behavior College makes no promises or guarantees about employment.