Share This Article
Making the decision to purchase a psychiatric service dog often comes with a hefty financial burden that many may not be able to afford. One option to avoid the cost of purchasing a fully trained service dog is to train your service dog yourself. While time-intensive, training your own psychiatric service dog can be the perfect solution for many that need assistance but may not have the resources to buy a fully trained dog.
In this article, we will be giving you an idea of what a psychiatric service dog can help assist you with. Then, we’ll be discussing how to go about training your dog for the first time and giving you some essential training tips to make your service dog’s lessons go as smoothly as possible.
The Cost of Obtaining a Psychiatric Service Dog
If you were to purchase a service dog from an organization that trains dogs, you will likely spend between $15,000 and $30,000. This cost includes the care and complete training of the dog up until the point they come to live with and assist you. For many, this can be cost-prohibitive, which is why training your own psychiatric service dog is often considered as an alternative.
It is important to note that while the ADA does not require professional training for service dogs, you may find that you need professional assistance in training your dog with more specialized or complex tasks. The cost of hiring a professional trainer can be between $150 and $250 an hour, which means that training a service dog yourself may also be quite costly depending on how much assistance you need from a professional.
That being said, training your own psychiatric service dog is a valid option that many people invest their time into, because it can be easier than going through the process of receiving a dog from an organization and has the potential to cost far less.
Psychiatric Service Dog Tasks
A psychiatric service dog (PSD) differs from both medical assistance service dogs and guide dogs. While medical assistance dogs are trained to alert to medical events such as seizures or low blood sugar and guide dogs are trained to lead the vision and hearing impaired, psychiatric service dogs are trained to alleviate the symptoms of mental health and psychiatric conditions such as anxiety, depression, PTSD, and autism.
The tasks that a psychiatric service dog is taught to perform include retrieving medications, alerting their owner to outside emergencies, preventing panic attacks, calming meltdowns, and interrupting negative or self-injurious behaviors. A PSD may also be taught to check corners, search rooms, or identify hallucinations in patients with schizophrenia.
Many of the tasks that a fully trained psychiatric service dog performs can be quite complex, which is why it is important to start with a good base of basic obedience skills and work on building those skills until the dog can perform more advanced actions.
How to Train Your Psychiatric Service Dog
It is definitely possible to train your own psychiatric service dog, and if you have your mind set on this option, you may be wondering how to go about it. Below, we give you some general guidance in getting started with your service dog’s training.
The process of training your own service dog can take between 1 to 2 years to fully complete, and training will need to be consistent during this time if you want the dog to pick up and understand every new skill and task.
General Public Access Test
An important step in making sure your psychiatric service dog is ready to support you in public is training it to pass the general public access test. This test is designed to test your dog’s ability to be out and about in public without getting distracted by common things such as traffic, loud noises, children, other people, and food.
It also tests the handler’s control over their dog and looks at the levels of fear and anxiety a dog may show in public; the more obedient, calm, and controlled your service dog is, the better they will perform on the test.
To get an idea of the basic skills you will need to train in your service dog, you can check out this video that details the items examined on the public access test. You should also know that while many service dog training organizations use this test, it is not required by the ADA for your dog to pass it – your service dog only needs to be well-behaved in public and perform a specific task to help with your disability. You can read more about the legal requirements for your service dog here.
Specialized Task Training
Part of meeting service dog requirements is ensuring that your dog is trained to assist with specific areas of your disability. Below, we give an idea of some of the tasks that you can teach your service dog.
Basic Service Tasks
Before you move on to any of the more complex or specialized behaviors, it is essential that you train your service dog in basic obedience. These skills will help you maintain control over your dog and establish a baseline relationship between the two of you in which the dog listens to your commands without fail.
You cannot move onto specialized training and complex tasks without first performing basic obedience training because your dog will likely not understand what you are asking for and they are unlikely to listen to you.
Basic commands include things like “sit,” “stay,” “come,” and “heel.” If you need help getting an idea where to start this training you can check out this video of basic dog obedience skills here. Only when your service dog in training has mastered these basics should you move on to different tasks.
Grounding
Grounding is when a psychiatric service dog rests their paw, body, or head on the owner’s body in order to stop a dissociative state, comfort them, or provide support during a PTSD flashback. Grounding is also sometimes referred to as deep pressure therapy. This video can provide more instruction on training the technique.
Guiding
When an individual has a dissociative episode related to their condition or becomes otherwise unable to find their way, a psychiatric service dog can be trained to guide them home or to a safe area in public. This will need to be taught by associating a specific command with returning home or moving to a safe area, which the service dog will then follow.
Balance Support
Sometimes, medications that treat psychiatric conditions or episodes of anxiety can cause an individual to become dizzy. In these cases, a psychiatric service dog can place themself next to their owner’s legs, holding them up. They can also be taught to lay down on the ground and allow the owner to place their head on them should the owner need to rest momentarily.
This skill is taught by teaching the dog a specific command and showing them where to stand or lay down during moments of dizziness.
Interruption and Redirection
Oftentimes, a psychiatric condition can cause an individual to exhibit obsessive behaviors or behaviors that are self-injurious. A PSD can be taught to recognize these behaviors and will either place themselves in the way of the person performing the action so it cannot be completed/ They may also bring an item such as a brush, toy, or leash to the owner in order to redirect their attention away from the negative behavior.
Alerting
Psychiatric service dogs can be taught to alert either outside emergencies that an owner may not hear due to medication or to an emergency with their owner. In both situations, the dog can retrieve phone or dial buttons to call for help, lead first responders to their owner, or nag and bark at their owner until they show a sign of reacting to the emergency.
This video can help you understand how to start training your dog to react to alerts.
Searching Rooms
For individuals with PTSD or anxiety, having their psychiatric service dog search rooms or check around corners before they enter can help decrease levels of discomfort or fear they may experience.
To train this, you will need to train a command for your dog that encourages them to search the room or other area you are pointing to; have the dog bark if there is someone in the room in order to let you know what to expect before entering.
This video can get you started on training your dog how to search your house or rooms before you enter into them.
Acting as a Buffer
For many people with anxiety or other psychiatric conditions, it can be an overwhelming and claustrophobic experience to go out into public. A PSD can help with this by acting as a buffer between the owner and the individuals around them.
The service dog will need to be taught a specific command that instructs them to lay or stand behind, next to, or in front of the owner in order to create a safe space for the individual.
Training Tips to Keep in Mind
While you proceed through the steps of training your psychiatric service dog, you should keep these tips in mind as they will help your training sessions go smoother and your dog to learn faster.
Positive Reinforcement
Even though service dog training can be difficult and frustrating at times, it is essential that you never use negative behaviors such as yelling, scolding, or hitting your dog as part of training. These behaviors will not only prevent the dog from learning properly, but they can also increase its stress and ruin its bond with you.
No matter how frustrated you are with the progress of your service dog training, positive reinforcement is the only type of attention you should be giving to your dog.
To properly execute positive reinforcement training, you should praise your dog or offer them a reward (such as a toy, petting, or treats) only when they complete the action you are asking of them. Doing this consistently throughout training sessions will help your dog associate your commands with positive things, and they will be more willing to learn skills in addition to picking up training faster.
Calm Mannerisms
Another important thing to remember while training is to remain calm and focus. You should avoid sudden movements, yelling, changing your tone of voice, or otherwise acting erratically as this can confuse and upset your dog. The more distracted they are, the harder it will be for them to learn skills and properly answer to your commands.
Consistency Is Key
As with most things, consistency is key when it comes to training your own psychiatric service dog.
Fully training a service dog can take up to 2 years, so it is important to keep training your dog every day and to continually test them in scenarios where they will need to put their tasks into action. These simulated scenarios can help you identify problems areas to work on during your next training session.
You should aim to work with your dog at least once a day, if not more. Several 15 to 20 minute training sessions spread out through the day can be helpful in keeping your dog on their toes and more engaged than a longer 2 hour training session once a day would.
Seek Professional Assistance When Necessary
While you may be able to train most tasks for your service dog, don’t hesitate to seek help if you find that you and your dog are stuck on a specific skill. Professional trainers can be expensive, but a few sessions might be all it takes to learn some important training information and get your PSD on track to performing the most complex of assistance tasks.
You can also invest in some professional books that can help you get a good idea of how to start training your service dog from the basics.
Can My Emotional Support Animal Be a Psychiatric Service Dog?
Without training, the emotional support animal (ESA) you already own cannot be considered a psychiatric service dog. You will need to invest time into training your dog to perform specific tasks that help with a psychiatric or mental health condition that affects your life on a daily basis before they can be considered a service dog and granted the legal protections of a service dog.
You can read more about training an ESA to be a psychiatric service dog here.
What Breed Does a Psychiatric Service Dog Need to Be?
Many owners think that you need to purchase a specific breed of dog to train into a service animal, but this is not true. A psychiatric service dog can be trained from any breed or age of dog as long as the animal has a generally calm demeanor, is eager to learn, and does not show aggression in any way.
That being said, some dog breeds are better suited for learning service dog tasks and have a friendlier disposition in public; these breeds include Golden Retrievers, German Shepherds, Havanese dogs, Poodles, and Miniature Schnauzers.
Younger dogs are typically better candidates for learning new skills, but older dogs can also be taught the necessary tasks with a little bit of extra effort.
Training for the Assistance You Need
For many individuals who need help from a psychiatric service dog but aren’t quite able to afford the financial investment in one, training your own service dog is a viable option. Though the training process will take significant time, dedication and consistency, the bond that develops between you and your service dog will be worth it.
If training your own psychiatric service dog is something you would like to invest in, your first steps should be to work on basic obedience and command tasks with your dog. From there, you can build up techniques until you have trained your dog to provide you with the assistance you need in your daily life.