Working Dog Training

Bring Out the Best in Your Dog

Working Dog Training

Paw Commons strives to provide a variety of pathways for an owner to succeed in training their dog for working opportunities. Whether you are interested in therapy work, service dog, facility dog or advanced obedience and public access, your trainer can create a package for you that meets your goals.

Dog with its trainer

Working Dog Training Programs

Advanced Obedience and Public Access

Through this program you and your pup will be introduced to public access training, therapy dog expectations, and education of a working animal. Your trainer will customize a package of services necessary to build your desired skills. Education may be obtained and practiced in group class settings, obedience camps, real world field trips, individual private lessons or a combination of all.

Service Dog and Personalized Skills

Beyond public access, Paw Commons trainers can assist you in creating personalized and customized skills needed to complete task-based services or working commands. Examples of skills include but are not limited to grounding, blocking, retrieval of item or person, alerting, and more. Camps can be utilized to implement foundations of these new behaviors quickly and easily. Skills are then generalized and proofed in real world field trips and individual private lessons to ensure you and your pup are successful.

Additional Information

ClassificationDescriptionADA ProtectionsPublic Access
Working K9 (police, detection, etc)Dog trained for a specific task in a working capacityNoYes
Service DogDog trained to mitigate a disability for an individualYesYes
Facility DogDog trained to assist within a facility. Has an assigned handler.NoYes (limited to role)
Therapy DogDog trained to give love, support, and therapy to others.NoYes (limited to role)
Emotion SupportDog who provides emotional support to an individual.NoNo

Who can be a working dog?

Many different types of dogs can complete a working role – even dogs who may not fit the traditional profile. Often high energy, trouble-making dogs are great candidates for a working role however, those dogs do need consistent guidelines and training to thrive.

What is your public access training?

Paw Commons Public Access Training was created to support working dogs and their owners in being successful and safe in their role. Our guidelines were created with Federal and State ADA Guidelines, best practices within the animal training profession, and with experienced trainers who have worked with working dogs for more than 20 years.

Will I need to do the training?

Any dog within a working role needs consistency of skills and experience to continue delivering the expectations set within its working role. We are happy to help you on your path and to help maintain those expectations. However, it is up to the owner/handler to be present in the training process. We will help adapt the training and daily life skills to be as seamless as possible and more importantly as simple as possible for you. But you play a major role in this process.