About the dogs

About the dogs | What they do |

As of 2012, in line with assistance dog organisations internationally, the Mobility Assistance Dogs Trust now provides three categories of Mobility Dog;

1. A Service Dog provides support both in the home environment and out in the community with full public access rights.   

2. An Assist Dog provides support at home, and public access is managed by a facilitator. 

3. A Skilled Companion Dog provides the support of a highly skilled pet and mitigates at least three aspects of disability. 

Tasks all the dogs are trained to do include fetching the phone, opening and closing doors and retrieving dropped items.  These tasks sit alongside the companionship, greater sense of security and feeling of connectedness to the community that a dog offers.

In addition to dogs trained for individual placement, Mobility Dogs also has a Facility Dog trained to assist a therapist working with a client in a rehabilitative setting and four Ambassadogs – Chance, Hugo, Elsa and Fleur – who work to raise awareness of the invaluable work of Mobility Dogs.  Our ambassadogs are Mobility Dogs that for various reasons are unable to be placed as service dogs. We require our ambassadogs to maintain public access standards with an annual assessment.

Service Dogs, Assist Dogs, Facility Dogs, Ambassadogs and our puppies in training are clearly identified by patches on the back of their official Mobility Dogs black service jackets.  Dogs with public access are clearly labelled with "public access certified" or "in training".

Puppies enter our programme primarily from breeders. Because of the nature of assistance dog tasks, medium to large breeds like Labrador and Golden Retrievers are favoured.

The puppies are placed with puppy-raisers to grow and mature.  These may be puppy-raisers in the community or prisoners involved in our Puppies in Prison programme. 

The puppies are exposed to a wide variety of situations and environments in preparation for their future as Mobility Dogs. Puppy-raisers are guided by dog trainers and handlers in working on obedience and basic assistance dog tasks. 

Between 12 and 14 months of age, the dogs return to Mobility Dogs to undergo advanced training and further refinement once they are matched with a recipient.

A trained Mobility Dog responds to 60+ commands. It is an investment of love and time, but also represents a significant financial investment.