Assistance Dogs
Adults and children with physical and/or developmental disabilities can direct an assistance dog to retrieve dropped objects; carry house keys, a phone, water bottle, coins or mail; open and close doors or drawers by pulling on a rope or bracing a shoulder; even activate light switches with their paws. An assistance dog can aid someone with limited mobility by pulling him or her short distances in a wheelchair while the owner holds onto its harness. An assistance dog can brace someone to stand up from a seated or fallen position by making its body rigid. Dogs can also brace someone while he or she climbs stairs. As the assistance dog performs its tasks, it makes its owner's environment more accessible.

Guide Dogs
People with blindness can count on their guide dogs to keep them safe by leading them to streets, buildings, parks or anywhere their owners choose to go. Guide dogs gently guide their masters and respond to verbal commands and hand signals.

Hearing Dogs
Adults who are hard-of-hearing or deaf can enlist the help of a hearing dog to alert them to a ringing TDD telephone or knock at the door, to nudge them awake when the alarm clock sounds, or warn them of danger if an intruder comes. A hearing dog will bring its owner to any sound unless it is the sound of a smoke alarm. Then the dog is trained to bring its owner to the nearest exit. Hearing dogs will respond to hand signals and mechanical clickers. Generally, service dogs learn to respond to any mode of communication its owner uses.

Seizure Response Dogs
Seizure response dogs are trained to recognize behaviors associated with its owner's seizures and to get help. They first get the attention of someone else in the household by running back and forth from the victim (it places a paw on the victim) to the other person —just as Lassie did in the Lassie TV series. If necessary, the dog will repeat the alert signal until help is on the way.

If no one else is around, a dog can activate a medical call box in an epileptic patient's home. The medical call box is set up in advance with emergency personnel who have the patient's medical record and registered medications. The box is activated when the dog pulls a cord attached to it. The dog will then lie upon its owner until the seizure subsides or help arrives. Having a seizure response dog allows an epileptic person the freedom to live alone and to travel. It helps family members relax about leaving their loved one alone.

Companion Dogs
Adults and children with disabilities benefit greatly from a companion dog. The relationship encourages social interaction with others and fosters a healthy sense of well being, and that means better health. When someone is happier they literally function better; this has been medically proven. Often, a person's disease will calm down or certain symptoms will disappear altogether after getting a companion dog.

Facilities Dogs
Some professional care-givers, educators and therapists utilize skilled facilities' teams of dogs while visiting a hospital, nursing home, hospice, group residence, school or a disabled individual. Dogs cheer people up! While easing loneliness, skilled facilities dogs improve the mental, physical and emotional health of those in their care.

Combination Dogs
Of course there are many people with multiple impairments who will utilize a combination dog that has been previously cross-trained, or they will send their dog for further training. For example, some guide dogs must also assist their owners by retrieving objects or performing other mobility-related tasks. Sometimes a person's disability worsens or he or she develops an illness such as epilepsy, which results in requiring the dog to have further training.

Service dogs do important work that maximizes independence in people with disabilities. And long before they hang up their harness at night, service dogs are also loving, loyal and non-judgmental friends who make a big difference in each owner's life.