Tier 1 of the Barbara Handelman Service Dog Trainer’s Course (BHSDT) is a comprehensive, 23 lesson self-paced course. It is an intensive course, with lectures, related reading assignments, quizzes, writing assignments and long-term projects.  You are assured access to and interaction with your instructor throughout the course. There will be monthly, online, live group meetings with your instructor and fellow students. There will also be scheduled, live one-on-one online chats with your instructor for designing your projects.  You will receive written critiques of your projects. Tier 1 is for experienced professional pet dog trainers who want to become service dog trainers and you must apply and be accepted into this program.  This course will prepare you to help owner-trainers select and train their own service dogs. The focus is on handlers and their dogs, not training theory or business practices. The course will provide knowledge essential for developing a service dog training program.  The course will also prepare students who wish to train for established programs. What Students May Expect in this Course: Flexible learning opportunities, accommodating the specific interests of individual students; Contact with Instructor, Barbara Handelman; Scheduled, monthly, 90-minute online group chats for enrolled-students only; Opportunities for discussion with Barbara and student-cohorts: in live, group, online interactions; Individual, scheduled online chats with Barbara; Access to a private Facebook page for past and present BHSDT students, moderated by Barbara; Access to three new lectures developed by Barbara, exclusively for this course; Access to Collected References and Resources which include research studies; blog entries; lectures and videos available online; as well as published and unpublished papers by renowned individuals in the service animal industry. Instructor assistance and guidance in: creating, implementing, and critiquing two training projects – with one puppy and with one dog; designing a training plan for a group of owner-trainers, and their service dogs in training; writing an assignment that will help the student choose an area in which to develop specialized expertise; choosing which tasks to train to mitigate factors that limit a client’s ability to perform activities of daily living (ADL skills); developing training plans, that utilize adaptive training tools, in order to address a client’s needs for individualized handling techniques; recognizing the difference between the client who wants a service dog and the client who needs a service dog; selecting appropriate service dog candidates with realistic potential to meet a client’s needs; reconciling a client’s need for assistance, with their chosen dog’s potential to meet those needs; knowing when to drop dogs from training or retire a dog from SD active duty; helping clients understand why the dog they’ve chosen is inappropriate; and, explaining why a specific dog might be successful as an ESA but not as a SD.

Sponsor:cheryl@e-trainingfordogs.com
Speaker(s):Barbara Handelman, MEd, CDBC

Contact: Cheryl Lynne Aguiar
 Email: cheryl@e-trainingfordogs.com
 Phone: 197-023-19965
 Web: https://e-trainingfordogs.com/servicedogtraining-tier1/