Our long term mission is to place well trained service dogs to assist the physically challenged to achieve a productive, self sufficient life style, independent of county or state funded operations. Further, our efforts will aid the disabled to live independently, be responsible for their own actions, and become a contributing member of society. Priority placements are given to physically challenged children under 18 years of age. This will require a constant commitment on behalf of our staff, to provide continuing support for the dogs and their partner.
Our organization is dedicated to two very high principles. The first is education. Our organization has committed itself to educate the public about assistance for the handicap other than blindness. Our primary focus is with children, as they are the ones fascinated with dogs in public, and like all children, they want to pet these lovely animals. Unfortunately, this is not a good practice, as service dogs must not be distracted from their primary focus.
We also attend conferences, set up information booths, and give demos in order to educate the community as a whole. Word of mouth testimonials are very powerful when spoken by someone who has experienced the independence gained by a well trained assistance dog.
The second focus of our Organization is our training program. We involve our volunteer puppy trainers to a level never heard of in other service dog organizations. By recruiting our trainers from within a 75 mile radius, allows them to be involved in the day to day training process. We use positive training only; no choke collars, no prong collars, and no shock collars, nothing but a clicker. We reward correct behavior, and ignore unwanted or incorrect responses. We discovered that dogs trained compulsively, with training collars and prong collars, which require sudden and often violent lead corrections, do not respond well to a physically challenged individual with no upper body strength, because they can’t apply sufficient force to the lead. This lack of proper correction often confuses the dogs and over time they will not respond at all. These dogs have been conditioned to respond with negative reinforcement, as compared to a positive trained dog who will always respond to a soft voice and a treat.
Assistance Dog Network supports other small service dog (501c3) organizations, which do not have a puppy raising program or breeding program, by making available well socialized and obedient trained dogs ready for advance training. When we place a dog with another service dog organization we ask for a small donation, and they’re more than happy to comply. These dogs are approximately two years of age, well socialized, solid in foundation work, with excellent recall and retrieving. They have had approximately one hundred hours of wheel chair work, as well as, access buttons and light switches.
These dogs are ready to be fine tuned to match the requirements of a handicapped partner. By providing dogs to other service dog organizations we expedite the placement process. This one action helps alleviate the long waiting lists common to service dog organizations.