By Jessie Weisner

Local organizations push for more owner service dog training

Oct 15, 2018 | 5:04 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB — Service dogs can be trained to aid people with a variety of disabilities, for this reason, it takes years to get them to a new owner.

However, recent new legislation makes them easier to certify.

The province changed the rules last December, allowing people to train their own pet to be a service dog. “The goal is to get well trained service dogs in public to help people as soon as possible,” says Maria Illes with the Alberta Dog Assessment Team.

A trainer with a local organization agrees, saying it’s not only better for the owner, but for the dogs as well.

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“It’s no good to have somebody else train your dog and then give it back to you,” says Sterling Hinch, vice president of the Gas City Dog Club.”Then you’re expected to do exactly what that trainer did, the dog is gonna be confused.”

Multiple dog training groups in Medicine Hat and surrounding areas are aiming to increase awareness on the new legislation. Since January, only one owner-trained dog has been certified in the Medicine Hat area, but that’s with no lack of work.

Doug Murray certified his dog, Kayla, after bringing her into Canada from the U.S.

“It takes about 18 months of socialization and then about two years or 1,400 hours of training on each dog,” says Murray. “So the dog’s pushing forward before it even gets out there.”

Despite being trained mainly by the owner, the dogs are still held to a high standard, and have to be assessed before becoming certified.

“You can have one hundred well-trained dogs,” says Illes. “It takes only one poorly trained dog to ruin all these 100 hundred dogs reputations. One Medicine Hat resident says training your own pet is ideal, because you already understand each other.

“I have a dog, but he’s not registered as a service dog, that would be something I’m actually looking into,” says Graham Pahl. “I suffer from anxiety and depression and he really really helps me at home. If I’m having a bad day and I have to go somewhere it would be awesome of he could come with me cause he knows how to read me.”

Both the Gas City Dog Club and Della’s K9 Connection are helping some residents move towards training their own dogs.

You can find out more details by contacting them through their websites at http://gascitydogclub.ca/ and https://www.dk9c.com/.