“Can I train my own service dog?” Was the question I started asking myself after I saw the cost of buying one. Probably the biggest hangup I had with getting a service dog for my anxiety was that cost of the whole thing. I kept looking at different websites who offered already trained service dogs. …
Finding a doctor who will prescribe a service dog can feel like trying to find a needle in a haystack. No one wants to go to the doctor once, much less go to several doctors and wasting their time and money only to be told the doctor doesn’t prescribe service dogs. More than once, I’ve …
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One of the hardest things to deal with in service dog training is distractions. There are four things that can make getting a trained behavior (like sit) harder – location change, duration, distance and distraction. When you’re training a behavior, you want to work each of these things separately at first, then you slowly add …
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I often talk to people who think they might be able to use a service dog for anxiety, but aren’t sure what the dog could do to help them. An anxiety service dog can actually be very helpful, depending on how severe your symptoms are. Sometimes, an ESA is enough to help with anxiety, but sometimes …
So you know you need a psychiatric service dog. But how do you go about asking your doctor about getting a service dog? As someone who suffers from anxiety, depression and low self-esteem, I end up in my own head a lot and get worried about being pushy, annoying or getting rejected. I am afraid …
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