Great time for a reminder about this with the annual Assistance Dogs International conference taking place in Toronto next week.

Said it before, say it again: first thing you need to look for with a service dog organization is if they are ADI accredited, which you can find here: ADI Accredited Members

And don’t go by the ADI logo on their website, either, because that can be misleading. Like this one on a heavily promoted place’s site:

Note that it says Full Member underneath it – it’s nice that they at least joined, but, sorry, that’s very definitely NOT the same as being an Accredited Member.

Now, being accredited doesn’t tell you that a place is perfect – in fact, there are a coupla places on the ADI accredited list I’m not wild about. But NOT being accredited is a red flag and tells you that the organization must have some reason for not doing it.

To begin with, the accreditation process, while thorough, is not overly difficult or expensive and any top-notch organization should be able to complete it with no problem.

Beyond that, ADI was formed in 1987 to address the need for standards within the industry. That’s still an ongoing problem 23 years later and something service dog places still take flak about all the time – for example, that’s been one of the VA’s biggest concerns for years.  ADI is the closest thing there is to a governing body for assistance dogs, and any place interested in seeing only the best dogs produced and the industry’s reputation strengthened needs to back that up by being accredited.

What it pretty much comes down to is, if an organization isn’t accredited, they either CAN’T or WON’T do it – either way is not good.

But, hey, as always, it’s your decision.  If you decide to talk to a place that’s not accredited, you at least need to ask why they aren’t.

Who knows? Maybe they can give you a reason that’s acceptable to you, but I haven’t heard one yet.