Understanding the Diversity of Consumer Experiences with Navigating Canada’s Service Dog Industry

The lack of publicly available demographic and prevalence data on service dog (SDog) teams in Canada challenges our understanding of how and to what degree limited industry regulations, unharmonized standards, differing pathways to acquiring an SDog, and other variables can affect individuals with disabilities’ (i.e., handlers/consumers) ability to acquire, train with, or live with an SDog in Canada. The present study aims to develop empirical knowledge on SDog handler/consumer experiences with navigating the Canadian SDog industry. Current, former, and prospective Canadian SDog handlers/consumers (N = 263) were surveyed on personal demographics, SDog acquisition experiences, and experiences training/working with an SDog. Descriptive statistics were calculated for all quantitative data and open-ended responses were content analyzed. Participants reported diverse experiences and processes in acquiring an SDog. The typical respondent was a novice SDog handler, inexperienced in formally training with dogs, grew up with dogs and cats, had no negative experiences with dogs, needed an SDog to support a mental health disability/ies, trained their SDog on their own or with some professional support, did not join a wait list, completed basic obedience, public access, and/or task-specific training with their SDog 0 to 5 h daily using positive reinforcement or fear-free training approaches, spent on average $2567 to purchase their dog and $6695 for ongoing training costs, and had minimal but satisfactory experiences with Canadian SDog organizations. There are numerous gaps in our understanding of SDog team experiences in Canada, and future research is warranted.