K9Assistance does not do so, as we cannot guarantee any success. You may also not want your beloved family pet to change careers and leave your home.
To ensure the quality of work and behaviour of the Assistance Dogs that K9Assistance provides, we only acquire dogs from Assistance Dogs International Accredited schools.
Typically, dogs undergo a precisely planned selection and training regimen that begin before birth. Most Assistance Dogs schools have a breeding program to ensure that a larger majority of the puppies make it to the end of training to become an Assistance Dog, even so only about half eventually pass after an approximate 2-year process in training.
When puppies are weaned, they are fostered with volunteer families for the first year of their life where they learn basic obedience, are exposed to different stimuli, and are also observed for their reactions to stimuli, health and trainability.
After which, they undergo a rigorous training process that may take up to 12 months to learn the tasks required of them to mitigate their future handler’s disability.
Finally, the Assistance Dogs are trained with their human partners for another 1 to 3 months to ensure the success of the human-dog partnership.