Our Director of Training, Donna Fournier, is quoted in this Cesar Milan article about Psychiatric Service Dogs and the ever changing laws…..Cesar’s Way ‘Mental Health Service Dogs‘ (please read so proud!!)

In the past 2+ years we have worked hard to develop, create and train dogs as PSD for our Veterans. We have faced many challenges due to he lack of laws and over-site for Service Dogs, but we maintained a program that we feel not only meets but exceeds the standards of training that are actually agreed upon industry wide. Recently a bill that passed, stating that “all service dogs will soon be barred from VA Property unless that Service Dog  has been trained by an entity that is accredited by an appropriate accrediting body (that the government has chosen for us.)

This has been something Donna and I have pushed hard for, but not this way. There needs to be guidelines, laws, registration in place. We have witnessed first hand witnessed dogs on base and in stores that haven’t had the proper training needed, Veterans taking Companion Animals as using them as Service Dogs.  People unqualified training these dogs, and in some cases owners training their dogs themselves off the internet. This is a void, a grey area that needs attention. The need for Veterans connected Service dogs is so great. Our waiting list alone is 2 years. However, this new law pigeon holes our organization and others, demanding that ALL Service Dog organizations get accredited by Assistance Dogs International (ADI).

We have contemplated getting accredited through them before this law went into affect. However, even though we meet and exceed their requirements, the  $1000. registration fee  is more than we have in our bank account balance all year!  The ultimate goal of this change is clearly to make owning a service dog more complex, limiting our Veterans and quite possibly shutting down smaller organizations  (like ours). The result causing longer waiting list, creating a bottleneck for our Veterans that could mean life or death.  To deprive our veterans rights that are already clearly spelled out by Federal Law would be cruel. To do so by tightly restricting  the benefits they worked and, fought for should be criminal. To make the process so complex that assistance dogs are basically not allowed into VA hospitals onto military bases, is downright unAmerican.

Until this is resolved, Donna and I fight the battles necessary to continue our mission of “Rescuing One to Rescue Another”…

To read Donna’s full interview: click here