The Assistance Dog Institute
As a result of regional and national print and broadcast media about the service dog — Reader’s Digest, 20/20, Life magazine and others — letters and calls poured in from people wanting to be taught how to train service dogs, colleagues from the Hearing Dog meeting amongst them. CCI had no materials that taught “how to do it” and no time to develop them; responding to these requests would create CCI’s competition. On the other hand, there was now a five-to-ten year waiting list for service dogs.
In 1991, she left CCI to found the Assistance Dog Institute offering a six-week seminar to educate others on how to develop assistance dog programs thereby reducing the wait for a service dog. Her move from a program providing dogs to an educational institution allowed her the opportunity to respond to the Delta Society’s 1992 request for help to start their very successful People Pet Partner’s program and the National Disaster Search Foundation’s development of their search dog program.
The Assistance Dog Institute was dedicated to both education and research and development of new and better assistance dog methodologies. Results of the Institute’s research is shared with all assistance dog programs so that more disabled individuals can benefit from the independence resulting from this unique working relationship with a dog.
Read more about this topic: Bonnie Bergin
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—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)