If you love dogs and you love helping people, helping to train service dogs as companions for the disabled is a wonderful business and vocation. There is a significant rise in demand for adequately trained service dogs due to the tightening of laws regarding service dogs.
Get Certified
Training service dogs does not require a real certification, but you’ll be more marketable if you do get trained by a recognized organization that helps people find service dogs. You may need to learn about the various conditions people have that needs service dogs so that you can train them especially for what they’re required for – whether it’s for a diabetic, deaf person, or someone with PTSD.
Get Licensed
You’ll need a business license for this job. Every city, state, and county is different regarding the type of licensure they require. You can check with your city hall or look up “business licenses my area” on Google to find out how to get licensed in your area. You can also contact your local SCORE.org office to find out more information about licenses.
Get Liability Insurance
This is one of those businesses that accidents can happen in. You never know what will happen with an animal, even a highly trained one. Your insurance agent can guide you in buying the right type of protection. You may also want to get bonded if you ever go on location.
Work on Your Skills
To be a good dog trainer, you need to be doing it all the time. The more you work with dogs, even for free by volunteering at your local no-kill shelter, the better you’ll get at training them. Volunteering to train dogs at the shelter so they’re more likely to get adopted will also feel great too.
Determine Your Business Model
This is an essential step because you may need to consider whether you’ll train dogs that owners already have to become certified service dogs, or if you’re going to find the dogs, raise the dogs, and train and sell the dogs instead. You can also do a combination of both. You can make more money if you raise and train the dogs yourself depending on the level of training you provide. Some certified highly trained dogs sell for over $30K.
Market Your Services
Once you’ve created your business model, it’s time to market your services. You can do it in several ways but the first thing you need is an online presence with a website and social media accounts. This will enable you to set up ads and share valuable information and content about service dogs with your audience.
The industry is not very regulated yet, but regulation is coming. The best thing to do is get all the training, certifications, and education that you can so that you are always above the law when it comes to training service dogs.
