Something my friend Corey Hudson, Canine Companions for Independence CEO, said in this recent podcast interview with Marcie Davis from Working Like Dogs reminded me of another one of the most overlooked aspects associated with service dogs. Marcie, who has a Paws With A Cause service dog and is on the International Association of Assistance Dog Partners board, was talking about the number of new organizations that have popped up lately, especially those targeted at veterans, and her concerns about that, and Corey said:

“Training dogs is one thing, and there’s a lotta people who do that, that does take a great deal of expertise and a lot of experience, but training at the same time and teaching people with disabilities, or anybody… to bring those two entities together, takes quite unique individuals to be able to do that. They’re not counterintuitive, but they’re not necessarily the same thing, and you put the two together… you need to, I believe, see a lotta dogs and a lotta people, a lot of graduates, before you consider yourself a qualified person. My analogy is using a baseball analogy that you need to see a lotta pitches before you consider yourself somebody who’s going to be qualified enough to put a dog in somebody’s hands that’s gonna make them more independent as opposed to more dependent.”

Still haven’t seen anything that makes this point better than the above funny five minute video from last July where two hosts from a local radio station visited the CCI campus in Santa Rosa, CA as part of their “we do your job for a day” series.

I talked about this in a little more detail in “You Can Train The Dog, But Can You Train The Human?”, the post where I first linked that video. As I said there, even those of us closely associated with CCI tend to think of how great the trainers are with the dogs, and forget about how great they have to be with the humans. It’s not accidental that it takes 3 1/2 years to become a fully qualified trainer at CCI, and I’ve had people at CCI tell me they think it really takes five years for you to get to where you feel like you know what you’re doing.

Not to mention all the interaction that goes on when you have a group of experienced trainers like that in each of the five regional centers all working together, and the ultimate impact that has on the quality of  the service dog teams they turn out.

Critical concept to keep in mind when you’re looking for a service dog for yourself, or for someone else, or a place to support or be involved with.