Support Dogs In Canada need more legislation and a governing body!

There is a need for Support Dogs in Canada to have a governing Body where they can be properly Tested and certified to stop people from being able to bring untrained dogs into public spaces and to stop the stigma that people who need support dogs deal with in the public due to this happening. There is also a lot of confusion within the community about what a support dog can do, many people think these are just regular animals that dont need to be trained and I think when done properly, a support dog can be trained and this helps their bond with the person they help.  Please sign this petittion with me, so we can work on fixing this system!

Meet Opie, this is my Support Dog that I have been training since he was 3 months old to help me be able to go in public easier due to my Anxiety and PTSD. Support Dogs are different from Service Dogs, as they still provide comfort and are important but they are allowed to be touched by the public where service dogs are not allowed to be touched by the public because they have to focus on the person they are helping. This being said when I took Opie to a trainer, to see if he had the proper temperment to be able to be a support dog to help me with my PTSD and anxiety. I found out while talking with this trainer that Opie would be able to be both a Therapy Dog as well as a Support dog, which is what I was hoping to be able to work on him with.

I started Training Opie once he was house trained, I started with simple commands like sit and stay, lay down, and then I started trying to help him with doing a better heal walk so he wasnt pulling badly. After training him for 3 months I was able to talk with a Long Term Care Home to volunteer with him, and get him used to being around people who use walkers or wheel chairs. I worked with Opie on this for close to a year before taking him to Therapy Tails in June to pass his Therapy Dog test. I also started taking Opie to Pet Smart in Saint Catharines to help him work towards his therapy tails test and also his Canadian Good Neighbour Test, he completed this test in September of this year and passed. It was really important to pass these test as they showed me that Opie and I were on the write track with our training (which we are still working on). I would love it if we could help the public be safer buy having one governing body along with more legislation and education around Support Dogs and how helpful they can be. I would also really like it if tests could be done in more areas of Canada, so that people would be able to get to these test easier. Not everyone who has a disability has the capability to drive a long ways away to be able to test their dogs. I also realize that having more places to test would mean more work to ensure tests are being kept to a standard which would help the public be able to feel more at ease when they see a Support Dog that has been trained by the owner for the owner. It also would allow people who have Support Dogs to have one place to certify them through which would prevent confusion within the larger communtiy about weather a Support Dog has been properly trained.  

Brittany Pyle    Contact the author of the petition