A Psychiatric Service Dog supports a person with one or multiple psychiatric disorders. Psychiatric disorders are mental health conditions affecting thoughts, emotions, and behavior, often impairing daily functioning.
Common Types of Psychiatric Disorders Include
- Mood Disorders: Depression, Bipolar disorder.
- Anxiety Disorders: Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), Panic disorder, Phobias.
- Neurodevelopmental Disorders: ADHD, Autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
- Trauma- and Stressor-Related Disorders: PTSD.
- Eating Disorders: Anorexia nervosa, Bulimia, Binge eating disorder.
- Personality Disorders: Borderline personality disorder.
- Psychotic Disorders: Schizophrenia, Schizoaffective disorder.
- There are many more
Source: National Alliance on Mental Illness
Mental disorders, Psychiatric Service Dog can support, are rarely caused by a single factor, often stemming from a combination of:
- Genetics: Family history and inherited genes.
- Biological Factors: Chemical imbalances in the brain or infections.
- Life Experiences: Trauma, abuse, or chronic stress.
- Environmental/Physical: Brain injuries (TBI) or exposure to toxins.
Source: National Alliance on Mental Illness
Psychiatric Service Dog Considerations
Regardless of how much you love someone, caring for a person with disability is taxing on the caregiver. It is demanding and exhausting over time. The specific type of stress and burnout associated with caregiving has been labeled Caregiver Syndrome. Psychiatric disabilities can make caregiving even more stressful, as in addition to physical limitations, the caregiver has to handle mental shifts in the person. The same applies to Psychiatric Service Dogs.
While all service dogs have to be psychologically sound, Psychiatric Service Dogs have to be especially so. Otherwise, the dog will be harmed by this work over time. The onset of anxiety in the dog is a common symptom. Unsuitable dogs will wash out of the service work.
For this reason, we stopped accepting existing dogs people own for Psychiatric Service Dog training in our board-and-train program. The washout risk was too significant. To ensure a dog is equipped to work as a Psychiatric Service Dog, we offer this board-and-train program only for dogs we select from trusted breeders. This also allows us to maintain our Total K9 Focus puppy guarantee for this type of service dog training. If a dog washes out of our board-and-train program during the training period, we cover the retraining risk of a replacement dog at our expense (minus the cost of a new dog).
The Most Common Psychiatric Service Dog Tasks We Train Are:
- Circling (for crowd control) to create more space for the handler.
- “Watching your Six” and alerting to people approaching from behind.
- Medication retrieval.
- Deep Pressure Therapy.
- Disrupting skin picking and other harmful behaviors.
- Blocking one or more sides of a person.
- Autism-related tasks.
We train all psychiatric service dogs to the unique needs of each person. Our dogs are not program dogs; they are custom-trained and bonded to each of our clients. We don’t just teach dogs a few tasks; we make you a well-functioning service dog team.
It is a common belief that only certain dog breeds are suitable as psychiatric service dogs or even that only dogs with special natural abilities can be used for this work. Nothing could be further from the truth. It certainly requires the right kind of dog, but not because of breed or natural ability. To learn more about how we select dogs for psychiatric service dog work, please read our article: What Is The Best Service Dog Breed? and also the related article: PTSD Service Dogs.
If you are interested in working with us to get a psychiatric service dog, you can read more about our Service Dog Consultations.
If you are ready do schedule a free consultation, please use our Service Dog Contact Form.