Working Dog Training
Paw Commons strives to provide a variety of pathways for an owner to succeed in training their dog for working opportunities. The following packages are set up for those who are interested in therapy work, service dog, facility dog or an advanced well-mannered dog training. While these packages have been created for client and dog success, please note that individual success is based on the individual team.
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California Invite Code: 887231
Arizona Invite Code: 667297
Working Dog 101 – Therapy and Public Access Introduction
Working Dog 101 provides an introduction into public access training, therapy dog expectations, and education of a working animal. These skills are learned and practiced in group class settings, real world field trips, and individual private lessons to ensure you and your pup are successful. Dogs who enroll into this session must be a minimum of 8 months or older and have an understanding of basic commands.
Working Dog 202 – Therapy and Public Access Certification
Working Dog 202 fine tunes and develops anticipatory behaviors required of any working dog. These skills are learned and practiced in real world field trips and individual private lessons to ensure you and your pup are successful. Completion of Working Dog 202 includes testing of Public Access Skills. Dogs who enroll into this session must be a minimum of 12 months or older and have passed AKC Canine Good Citizen or an individualized training evaluation.
Service Dog Bootcamp – Service and Public Access Foundation
Paw Commons offers a specialized 6-week training program to teach your pup the foundations of public access and service work expectations. This is an accelerated program to jump start your dog’s career. This package does include an hour departure lesson and 3 one-hour follow up lessons to ensure continuation of skills. Dogs who enroll into this program must have an understanding of basic commands. This can replace Working Dog 101 and 202 Packages.
Working Dog 303 – Personalized Skill Training
Working Dog 303 is personalized and customized to your individual skill set needed to complete task-based service skills or working commands. Examples of skills learned include but are not limited to grounding, blocking, retrieval of item or person, scent work, alerting, calming behaviors, and many more. These skills are learned and practiced in real world field trips and individual private lessons to ensure you and your pup are successful. Dogs who enroll into this session must be a minimum of 12 months or older and have passed AKC Urban Canine Good Citizen, Paw Commons Public Access Testing, or completed the Working Dog 101 and 202 classes or the Working Dog Bootcamp.
Additional Information
| Classification | Description | ADA Protections | Public Access |
|---|---|---|---|
| Working K9 (police, detection, etc) | Dog trained for a specific task in a working capacity | No | Yes |
| Service Dog | Dog trained to mitigate a disability for an individual | Yes | Yes |
| Facility Dog | Dog trained to assist within a facility. Has an assigned handler. | No | Yes (limited to role) |
| Therapy Dog | Dog trained to give love, support, and therapy to others. | No | Yes (limited to role) |
| Emotion Support | Dog who provides emotional support to an individual. | No | No |
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.