This course covers detailed information regarding a variety of cues and skills that help mitigate symptoms related to psychiatric disabilities. Examples of such tasks are deep pressure therapy, behavior interruptions, alerting to someone approaching, and more. Learn how to train a dog to help their person during a panic attack, dissociative episode, and navigate their daily life with a sense of safety and freedom.
This is a great course for trainers and service dog handlers/owner-trainers alike.
How You Will Learn
Atlas’ Psychiatric and Cognitive Disability Skills Speciality course is an online, self-paced course. To ensure this is the best fit for your learning style, please make sure you understand the following about the course structure and what will be required of you.
- Learn through a mix of written material, hand-outs, worksheets, and videos, all hosted on our online learning platform.
- You will be asked to complete short quizzes along the way to ensure you understand the material.
- You will be asked to submit 2 video assignments where you are working with a dog. You will get individualized and valuable feedback!
- You will have the opportunity to discuss your tests and assignments with Atlas faculty as well as retake tests as needed.
- You will be in charge of your own time management and are responsible for going through the course.
The Details
- Cost: $325
- Timeline: You will have SIX months to complete this course. After this time, you will lose access to the course unless you have prior written arrangements with Atlas.
- CEUs: This course qualifies for 12 CEUs with CCPDT.
- Who is it for: This course is geared towards experienced dog trainers as well as those training their own service dog. To be successful in this course, trainers and owner-trainers alike will need/should have a basic understanding of positive training methods, how to use a marker, how to deliver reinforcement and how to set up a training session. This course is not for the novice handler who does not have prior dog training experience. For the dog : In general, before moving onto more complex task training, dogs should have a foundational level of training. This course is not appropriate for puppies or young adolescents.
Many trainers begin with Dog Training Foundations before learning psychiatric service dog tasks.
FAQs
You will have access to the course for six months. Some people complete it in one month, while others may spend the whole six. Regardless of how fast you complete it, you will have access for six months.
If you have not completed the course within six months and wish to continue, we do offer a two month extension for $50 to give you additional time. If you do not wish to continue beyond the six months, you will lose access to the course.
Great! Please visit our Trainer Academy page for information about the program and its requirements. Having completed this course first will give you a discount on the Academy.
While this course goes over a wide range of tasks that service dogs can perform, your dog knowing said tasks does not automatically make your dog a service dog. Under the ADA, a service dog is a dog that is trained to perform at least one task that directly mitigates their handler’s disability, and the dog must be well-behaved in public.
You may not claim that Atlas Assistance Dogs has trained your dog as a service dog upon completing the course.
Learn more about Atlas’ Client Certification program.
Maybe. This is a self-paced, online course. You will get plenty of feedback on the assignments you submit and opportunities to talk to instructors. The assignments you submit are meant to help you apply the course material with the dog(s) you are working with. But you will not be watching live demos or have instructors coaching you live as you work with a dog. Please consider your learning style before signing up.
This course is not geared for the novice dog handler. While you do not need to be a professional dog trainer, to be successful in this course, participants will need/should have a basic understanding of positive training methods, how to use a marker, how to deliver reinforcement and how to set up a training session.
If your dog is a puppy or young adolescent, this course is not right for them. You will be learning advanced disability tasks. This is something that should only be introduced once your dog has a foundational level of training and is mature enough.
If your dog is under 14 months of age or does not have the appropriate foundations, consider our Teams Set in Motion course first.
Atlas Assistance Dogs believes in using positive reinforcement, non aversive, and scientifically backed training methods. We do not endorse the use of pain, fear, intimidation, or force when working with dogs (or people). Any student signing up for our course will be asked to commit to using positive training methods.