Service Dogs Are Not Therapists.

Nor are they counsellors, psychologists, psychiatrists, or doctors.

We feel the need to remind people of this, when they expect their new puppy to wield magical healing powers.

Service dogs are not a replacement or a stop-gap for a good psychologist and therapy, or for medication. You need to get the therapy, try the medications, and get yourself feeling okay before you can get a service dog.

“But Therapy Is Expensive!”

We hear this a lot. We agree. We wish government funding covered more of it. But dogs cost even more, and without therapy, your chance of successfully raising and training your own psychiatric support dog is… very poor.

And yes, therapy is hard.

It is painful and difficult and requires years of hard work.

But raising and training a service dog is also hard. It is also painful and difficult and requires years of work. So people sometimes decide they can only do one… and they go for the dog.

Cue face-palm emojis from the dog trainers.

Why you can’t skip therapy and go straight to service dog:

1. Dogs require patience. People who become emotional easily, get frustrated or impatient quickly, manifest anxiety through controlling behaviour, or who lose their temper cannot be good teachers and role models to their dog.
2. Dogs require forgiveness. Even if you receive a fully trained dog from a charity, the dog will make mistakes, have needs that conflict with your own, and require your occasional forgiveness, so you must know how to bestow it on yourself and on them.
3. Dogs learn by example. Just as a parents’ fear of snakes can be passed down to their children, your own anxieties can be passed to your dog if you don’t have them well managed during the dog’s upbringing.
4. Dogs give back what they receive. Dogs of all ages, but especially puppies, are bottomless wells of emotional need. If you are not emotionally available to give your dog all of the love, compassion, and comfort that they need growing up, even when it conflicts with your own personal feelings and needs… they are not likely to know how to respond to you when you are upset and need comforting.

It’s important to understand that service dogs are not treatments for anxiety or depression. They are supports.

If you’re having trouble understanding the difference, here are some comparisons:

Service dogs are not insulin. They are glucose-monitors.

Service dogs are not cochlear implants. They are translators.

Service dogs are not epi-pens. They are allergen warnings.

People with physical illnesses or disabilities understand that the dog helps them manage their condition – they don’t treat the condition. Having a diabetic alert dog will not stabilize your blood sugar, and having an allergen alert dog won’t stop you from having a reaction if you eat the food anyway.

Heck, people with schizophrenia understand that the dog can tell them when they are hallucinating – not chase away the hallucination.

But people with anxiety or PTSD who get a service dog seem to think the dog will have some magical ability to make them feel better and reduce their depression or anxiety.

Often, the addition of a dog can do the opposite.

working with a dog requires good emotional regulation.

Trainers will be the first to tell you – when you are training a dog, your own feelings don’t matter. Only the dogs’ feelings matter… This is just like a therapist, who must put their own feelings on a shelf when they are with a client. We must put our feelings and ego aside when training a dog.

Many people, just like dogs, allow their feelings to drive their behaviour, and some people, just like young dogs, cannot help but behave the way they feel. They are completely at the mercy of their feelings, unable to control their own behaviour in a thoughtful way.

But dog training is teaching, and we can’t learn from a teacher who explodes whenever they feel impatient, prioritizes their ego over their students’ learning experience, or expects their students to know as much or more than they do.

After all, if you are older than a dog, with a bigger brain than a dog, and better educated than a dog, why would you expect the dog to have more wisdom and self-control than you have?

If you came from an emotionally dysregulated home, suffered a trauma, or struggle with your emotional wellbeing, that needs to be under control before you can train a dog.

The decision to raise and train a service dog therefore requires a certain amount of self-knowledge.

We must have the ability to reflect on our own abilities and struggles and ask ourselves, “can I maintain patience with an unruly dog?”

“Can I handle the extra attention that strangers will pay to me when I am working with my dog?”

“Can I coach something with the brains of a human toddler but the teeth of a predator gently and with patience?”

“Am I emotionally well enough to model appropriate behaviour to my dog?”

Without those capacities in place, your dog is likely to cause you more stress and difficulty than be helpful, and you should be aware that the SPCA is quite willing to seize dogs who live in emotionally unstable homes. We have been consulted several times by the SPCA on cases like this and it is difficult for everyone involved.

What Good Is A

Psychiatric Service Dog, Then?

Service dogs are incredible supports to the folks who have put in the work in therapy and have found the right combination of medications/diet/routine/schedule to support their own mental and physical wellness.

Dogs aren’t therapists but they are wonderful friends and fantastic wingmen.

A dog cannot teach you DBT, but a dog can provide an outlet for you to practice your DBT by counting your dog’s whiskers, focusing on the softness of their ear, etc.

A dog cannot teach you to face your anxieties, but a dog can help prompt you to perform the techniques that you have found useful by learning to alert you when it is time to do your breathing exercises, and a dog can make new situations less scary through their own joie de vivre.

A dog can’t correct your self-talk around your social anxiety, but your dog can show you that it is okay to be silly and show you that we can be awkward or undignified and still be supremely lovable.

A dog can’t teach you how to tolerate annoying strangers, but a dog can be a wonderful ambassador to helping you make new friends.

Yes, You CAN Still Train Your Own Psychiatric Service Dog

Don’t let your psychiatric history stop you from raising and training your dog, though!

Sometimes the best trainers are ones who have been through therapy and done the work on teaching themselves these vital skills. Like with many other skills in life, those with formal training are likely to do better than folks who haven’t put in the work and practiced the skills.

Dog handling requires a lot of deep breaths, perspective taking, re-framing, redirection, and emotional openness. Where better to learn these skills than with a trained therapist?

So by all means, raise and train your own psychiatric service dog.

But for dog’s sake, make sure you have the right dog, and be sure that you have mastered the skills yourself before you try to teach them to someone else.