Training “comes with” all of Your Service Dog Inc’s Program Service Dog Teams.
Those who choose to enroll in the school with their own dog can take advantage of these superior quality courses at a subsidized rate through Your Service Dog Inc nonprofit 501c3, which makes the courses affordable for everyone no matter what their pocket size may be.
Courses Available at Your Service Dog School include:
- Prospect Evaluation Course (access to this one is limited to Your Service Dog Inc’s Program Dogs).
- Basic Foundation Skills Course L1 is as it sounds, the basic foundation for a Service Dog’s education
- Basic Foundation Skills Course L2 is a course for the SDIT to continue their basic training, with emphasis on the “3 D’s” (Distance, Duration, and Distraction).
- The Awesome Dog Course. This course is for Pet Dogs and their Humans who wish to take advantage of basic training at Service Dog Standards
- The Emotional Support Dog Course is for Handlers who wish to have their Emotional Support Dog trained to a high standards.
- Psychiatric Service Dog Course L1 is for SDITs to learn this type of Work for their Human
- Psychiatric Service Dog L2 is for SDITs continuing to learn more advanced Tasks and Work of this type
- Mobility Service Dog Course L1 is for SDITs to learn this type of Work for their Human
- Mobility Service Dog Course L2 is for SDITs e to learn more advanced Tasks and Work of this type
- Diabetic Alert Dog L1 is for SDITs to learn this type of Work for their Human
- Diabetic Alert Dog L2 is for SDITs to learn more advanced Tasks and Work of this type
- Becoming a Full Potential Service Dog is the final phase of the training of a Full Potential Service Dog and this course prepares the Service Dog Handler for life with a Service Dog.
- Your Service Dog School’s Trainer’s Certification Course. This course is designed to give the student independent knowledge of the Lelah Sullivan Method of Training and prepare them for real-life situations with Students which will include a knowledge of personalizing the training and adapting it to suit the individual needs of the disabled student.
The number of courses that a Service Dog needs to complete his or her training will depend on the disability of the Handler/Partner and what Tasks the dog needs to do in order to mitigate their Human Handler’s disability.
This final course Becoming a Full Potential Service Dog focuses on adding finesse to the Tasks that have already been learned throughout all of the other courses and on ensuring that the Service Dog and disabled Handler are comfortable working together as a team. This course will also cover the “What happens next” question and the Handler will be encouraged to work out a daily training schedule. The course will include a talk on responsible Guardianship and the importance of daily play, exercise, and continued training to ensure that their Full Potential Service Dog continues to mitigate their Handler’s disability and assist them in every possible way to strive to reach their Full Human Potential. This final course is free of charge to all Full Potential Service Dogs and their Handlers upon completion of their courses.
Your Service Dog School (created and owned by Lelah Sullivan) with its wealth of positive reinforcement course material has been very graciously loaned to Your Service Dog Inc and all of the proceeds from tuition fees at Your Service Dog School are donated directly to Your Service Dog Inc for the duration of the loan.
This very generous donation enables Your Service Dog Inc to offer its clients Top Quality Service Dog Training Courses that would otherwise cost many thousands of dollars, at a discounted cost, subsidized by Your Service Dog Inc.
Normally such courses would cost the disabled person over $3,000.00 per course, however, because the course is now subsidized by Your Service Dog Inc, the cost per course, to the disabled person, is kept at prices aimed at being affordable to all (and courses are free of charge to recipients of our PEP Program dogs).
All of the specialization courses deal with specific disabilities and enrollment in these courses is only offered to those who have completed our Basic Foundation Skills Courses L1 and L2. The specialization courses are also subsidized (and free of charge to recipients of our PEP Program dogs).
The School Textbook valued at $49.99 and a School Workbook are included in the listed cost of the course.
For those interested in the Trainer’s Certification Program, please email The School Board for more details at: enroll@yourservicedog.com
Your Service Dog School’s certified Trainers are skilled at their craft, having studied the Training Your Own Full Potential Service Dog® Method of Training under the supervision of Lelah Sullivan. Although many apply to become Trainers at Your Service Dog Inc, only a handful are selected to be appointed as Trainers in order to ensure that a high standard of training is maintained at Your Service Dog School.
Our professional Trainers are welcoming, dedicated and helpful volunteers who work individually with each student in an online capacity and who also work on the ground, in person with a student, depending on the location of the student and the availability of a Trainer at that location.
Students and their dogs who begin the courses at Your Service Dog School always begin with the Basic Foundation Skills Course.
Even if your dog knows basic obedience or has learned several tasks to date, we still recommend that you begin with the Basic Foundation Skills Course because our method of training is different from what your dog may have encountered elsewhere.
Each step of our course in Basic Foundation Skills is engineered in such a way as to not only teach your dog basic obedience and preparation for future Service Dog task training but also the method of training and the careful step-by-step progression enables your Service Dog in Training to begin to think and to make good choices. The ability of your Service Dog to make good choices and to even perform an “intelligent disobedience” is of great importance and can be what you may one day rely on to save your life. When Rebecca, one of the Trainers at Your Service Dog School, suffered a life-threatening seizure, her Service Dog, Spike, went to get her the help and assistance she needed in order to save her life, even though he was otherwise supposed to stay put where he was.
But where do I begin?
You can begin your course once you receive your login details from Your Service Dog School and your Textbook from the Enrollment Department at Your Service Dog Inc
You will then be assigned a Trainer after you introduce yourself and your Service Dog in Training Prospect at Your Service Dog School.
Your Trainer will work with you on a one-on-one basis as you navigate your way through the course. Your Trainer will assist you as needed 5 days per week, apart from Public and School Holidays. You will find these Holidays listed on your school calendar.
More information about what to expect once you enroll at Your Service Dog School:
Your Service Dog Inc’s Trainers are backed with a combined total of over a hundred years of experience!
All of the courses at Your Service Dog School are offered free of charge to those who are participating in Your Service Dog Inc’s P.E.P. program however, if you are training your own Service Dog that you selected and own, Your Service Dog nominal fees will apply for Basic Foundation Skills L1, which is where you and your dog will begin. You will be assigned a personal Trainer to assist you throughout your course. Your Trainer will be available from 5 days per week,, however, all of Your Service Dog School’s Trainers are off duty 2 days per week and on public and school holidays.
All of our students begin with the basics because creating a solid foundation is so important, and can then be built upon for whatever type of Service Dog that you want to train.
With step-by-step assistance from one of our qualified trainers, you will learn the Training Your Own Full Potential Service Dog® method of training as we work together to train a Service Dog who performs at his or her full potential in order to help you mitigate the challenges of a disability.
How does it work? Because Your Service Dog School is an online training school, you can access the course material from the comfort of your own home, provided you have access to internet service. Your Service Dog School is in the USA and references ADA law, however, our international student numbers are growing rapidly and Your Service Dog School now has students from all over the world.
What do I need to do? Your trainer will ask for videos of you doing the lessons with your Service Dog In Training (SDIT) and provide feedback to help you improve your training techniques. You will work closely with your trainer and learn to train your dog to work with you to meet your individual needs.
Once you have completed the course with a passing grade, you will receive a certificate of completion.
If you are interested, please fill out the Service Dog School Application.https://forms.gle/eH4hDHwcFSoFS98u7
At the moment we have places available in our Basic Foundation Skills Course L1 for a number of new students, but sometimes our trainers reach their quota of students due to high demand. If this is the case when you apply, we ask for your patience because usually within weeks an opening occurs and a place on our course becomes available.
Overview of the Basic Foundation Skills Course
The Basic Foundation Skills Courses, (Level 1 and Level 2) are where your dog will learn the foundational behaviors needed by all Service Dogs, as well as a Task that will be customized to the individual for your specific disability challenges.
Your dog will learn to have good manners in public while maintaining attention on his Service Dog Work. Your dog will begin to learn to focus on you and to help with your life challenges.
With this method of training, dogs enjoy “learning how to learn,” and this developed skill will facilitate easier training in the future.
All of the Dogs enrolled at Your Service Dog School must complete the Basic Foundation Skills courses levels 1 and 2 before enrolling in one of our specialization courses.
At Your Service Dog School, students are assisted step-by-step by qualified Service Dog Trainers to train their own Full Potential Service Dog, Emotional Support Dog, Therapy Dog, or (with our newest course) Awesome Pet Dog. The Awesome Pet Dog course was designed to offer Service Dog standard training to Pet Dogs with a view to one day creating an environment that would be free of distractions from untrained dogs, for disabled persons training their own Full Potential Service Dog.
Your Service Dog School accommodates Your Service Dog Inc’s Handler Training Program which is one of a number of programs of Your Service Dog Inc 501c3 nonprofit serving the needs of the disabled.
Your Service Dog school and its courses are on loan to Your Service Dog Inc to assist the organization to fulfill its mission and work in accordance with the vision of its founder.
The Training Your Own Full Potential Service Dog® Method of Training. This method of training is the only method of training used at Your Service Dog School and is a positive reinforcement training method that uses a clicker as a marker to indicate to the dog that he or she has earned a reward.
Lelah Sullivan drew from over 50 years of dog training experience, first as a performance Dog Trainer and later from her vast experience as a Service Dog Trainer of international acclaim, to compile a step-by-step method of training a Service Dog that is so easy, so that even a child can follow the sequence of steps successfully (under adult supervision of course, and with the assistance of one of our trainers Trainer).
The origin of this method of training dates back centuries and was used by circus animal trainers for eons.
Circus folk who trained performance animals needed their animals to happily perform for their audience, therefore they employed a method of training that was fun for the animals and one which was proven over time to be successful in the training of all animals large and small, including dogs and birds.
Lelah’s uncle Joseph trained dogs and other animals as Circus Performers, and it is at his knee, under his expertise and careful guidance, that a very young Lelah Sullivan began her dog training career.
Lelah accompanied her uncle Joseph as a child to some of the movie sets where the famous Hollywood Dog Star Lassie performed, and where she listened as her uncle Joseph, offered training advice and tips to the trainer of Lassie.
Lelah, as a young child, soaked up a wealth of training information as she listened to her uncle joseph and Lassie’s Trainer debate training tactics and techniques.
Later, as an adult, Lelah continued to learn and work as a dog Trainer, and over the years she trained dogs for many purposes.
Lelah was always fascinated by the intelligence of dogs and she began to do studies in relation to their understanding of language and their ability to understand and communicate.
The “Training Your Own Full Potential Service Dog® ” Method of Training is a unique and positive method of training born out of Lelah Sullivan’s vast experience and knowledge of all aspects of dog training.