Service dogs are truly amazing creatures. Trained from the day they are born, they can accomplish many tasks, some equivalent to those of a human child. A service dog can be trained to help people with physical and emotional disabilities. They truly fulfill the role of being your best friend, your guide, and a companion for someone with disabilities. Service dogs are more than just pets; they become an integral part of your life and are emotionally supportive and attentive as well.
What service dogs do:
Service dogs assist people in many ways, from helping their blind owner cross the street to retrieving important objects for a sick or injured person. Service dogs can even give you emotional support, calm you down, and help sick people fight problems such as anxiety and post-traumatic stress. There are dogs that assist the deaf by alerting them of bells, horns and alarms. They can even detect the phone ringing. The police service dogs are highly trained in order to track drugs, follow a scent, lead search and rescue missions, and even track explosives in case of any eminent terrorist attack or danger.
Service dogs are known to have performed various acts of heroism on account of their instinct and training, such as warning people of eminent danger or helping injured individuals, and even finding lost children. These dogs can also be trained to help those who are physically challenged. They can act as your navigator, your helper and guide.
Workers from day one:
However, not every dog can fulfill this duty. These dogs are specially trained to serve and assist. They are also trained to react quickly to extreme situations or hazards. Their training begins from when they are two days old and continues until they are eighteen months old. They go through many stimulation exercises that allow them to become faster and sharper than normal dogs. This training is expensive and intense, which is why the end result is a fully trained dog ready to assist anyone in need. They are taught discipline and self-control, which allows them to access stressful situations and use their sharp senses purposefully, rather than following their animal instinct or running away from such situations.
These dogs also wear specially designed gear that they learn to use during their training. When their training ends, they take their gear with them in service. The dogs are typically assigned to different owners depending on the needs of the owners. Sometimes, a service dog may serve the same owner till its retirement age, which is typically after ten years of service. Even after their retirement, these dogs are extremely sought after, because of their trained behavior and discipline. There are long lists of families and individuals waiting to adopt such controlled, strong creatures.
Making a difference in society:
Service dogs are slowly becoming an integral part of our society. With the passage of time, they are replacing conventional methods of nursing the disabled. They help give people independence, despite their disabilities. These dogs have served a large number of people and have been known to perform various heroic acts of kindness. A dog can truly be a man’s best friend, and if given the proper training, they can even become your eyes or your third leg or your guide in a lonely place. Even though training them can be expensive and time consuming, the positive impacts such training bears outweigh the cost. Thus, society as a whole should appreciate these creatures for what they are doing to help us.
