Service Dog History

Service dogs have been used for close to 100 years, with this in mind how did it all start? Not just the use of dogs to do jobs humans can not do, but the domestication of dogs in general. Scientists speculate that the first wolves to start trusting humans did so for an easy meal, left over scraps. These wolves would play a crucial role in the survival of early humans. “From China to Africa, we know that certainly by 10,000 years ago dogs were playing a critical role in the lives of humans all over the world, whether as sentries, ritual sacrifices, or sources of protein.” (Jarrett Lobell, Eric Powell) With the domestication of dogs happening so long ago it was only a matter of time until humans would realize other benefits of keeping and breeding dogs.

Seeing eye dogs were the only recognized service dogs, other than dogs and their roles in the military, up until the Americans with Disabilities Act, with gave a concrete definition of a service dog, “any guide dog, signal dog, or other animal individually trained to provide assistance to an individual with a disability.” (The History of the Service Dog, Part II) The use and training of a service dog for a role other than a guide dog for the blind first began to emerge in the 1960’s, although there was no formal organization or training this led way for a more formalized way of training service dogs. NEADS was one of the first programs devoted to training specialized service dogs for the deaf. Since the start of NEADS in 1976 the term service dog has been greatly expanded, from dogs for kids with autism to veterans with PTSD; each time the role of a service dog is expanded, the standards and guidelines for training are then