Overview, Scope & Definitions

0.1 Purpose

This manual defines the standards a dog, handler, and trainer must meet for the dog to be certified and registered as a service dog by Service Paws. It is the authoritative internal reference for:

• Trainers — what to train, to what level of reliability, and what evidence to submit.
• Service Paws assessors — how to administer and score assessments consistently.
• The registry — what a Service Paws certification means: every certified dog has passed the requirements in this manual for its discipline.

Attestation letters, certificates, and the public registry all reference this document ("assessed and certified against the Service Paws Training & Certification Standards").

The SPTCS consolidates and formalizes the training and assessment practices Service Paws has applied since 2022 — the discipline protocols in this manual (see, e.g., Chapter 5) were in operational use before this document existed. Version 1.0 is the first consolidated, published edition of those practices.

0.2 What Service Paws certifies

Service Paws certifies task-trained service dogs: dogs individually trained to perform specific tasks that mitigate the effects of their handler's disability, and that meet our public-access behaviour standard.

Certified disciplines (each has its own chapter):

0.3 What Service Paws does NOT certify

• Guide dogs for blind or visually impaired handlers. Guide work is a distinct, highly specialized field served by dedicated guide dog schools, and in several jurisdictions is separately regulated. Applicants seeking guide work are referred to an accredited guide dog school.
• Emotional support animals and therapy dogs. Service Paws does not currently offer these programs. Comfort from an animal's presence — however genuine — is not a trained task and does not qualify a dog under this standard.
• Protection, guard, or personal-defence work. Any dog trained to bite, threaten, or intimidate is permanently ineligible for Service Paws certification.

0.4 Definitions

These terms are used consistently throughout the manual.

• Task — a trained, repeatable behaviour, performed on cue or in response to a defined event, that mitigates the effects of the handler's disability. Comfort, companionship, or emotional reassurance from presence alone is not a task.
• Alert — a task where the dog initiates communication to the handler (or a third party) that a target condition has been detected (an odour, a sound, a physiological change) before or as it occurs.
• Response — a task where the dog performs trained assistance during or after a defined event (e.g., retrieving medication after a seizure, summoning help after a collapse).
• Documented alert behaviour — spontaneous alerting ability that a specific dog demonstrably exhibits, supported by a corroborated evidence log, but which cannot be guaranteed by training alone. See §0.5.
• Indication — the specific trained behaviour a detection dog uses to communicate a find (e.g., nose press, sit, paw touch). Passive (non-destructive, non-vocal) indications are required.
• Handler — the person with a disability the dog is trained to assist. For minors or persons requiring support, a co-handler (parent/guardian/support person) may share handling duties (see Chapter 11).
• Trainer — the person who conducts the dog's training, registered with Service Paws under Chapter 14.
• Assessor — the person who scores a certification assessment. Assessments are administered by the trainer and overseen by a Service Paws team member, in person or by video (Chapter 14).
• Public Access Test (PAT) — the universal behaviour assessment in Chapter 3. Identical for every discipline.
• Reliability threshold — unless a chapter states otherwise, a trained behaviour must succeed in at least 90% of assessed trials, and safety-critical items must succeed in 100% of assessed trials.
• Proofed — a behaviour demonstrated at threshold across the required range of environments and distractions (Chapter 4).

0.5 Honest-claims policy (alert vs. response)

Service Paws certifies only what can be trained, tested, and evidenced. This is a deliberate, non-negotiable design principle of this standard:

1. Trained detection of a collectable odour (allergens, hypoglycemia scent samples) is certifiable — it can be imprinted, tested blind, and scored.
2. Spontaneous alerting to physiological events (seizures, some cardiac events) cannot be guaranteed by training. Some dogs demonstrably develop it; when they do, Service Paws records it as documented alert behaviour on the strength of an evidence log — it is never promised, and never certified without evidence.
3. Prediction of stroke is not an established, trainable skill and is not certified. Trained response to a medical emergency is certifiable and highly valuable (Chapter 8).

Marketing, certificates, and attestation letters must never claim more than the applicable chapter certifies.

0.6 Welfare and training-methods statement

• The dog's physical and behavioural welfare takes precedence over any training goal, assessment, or deadline.
• Training under this standard uses reward-based methods. Assessments must show a dog that works willingly; a dog displaying sustained stress signals (see Chapter 3, critical fails) does not pass, regardless of task performance.
• Prong collars, electronic collars, and any equipment or method that works through pain or fear may not be used in any Service Paws assessment.
• Working limits: handlers and trainers must respect duty cycles, rest, heat, and age-appropriate workloads (specific gates in Chapters 1 and 13).

0.7 The three recorded milestones

Certification produces three dated records on the dog's registry entry. These are the dates quoted in attestation letters:

0.8 Legal and medical notice

The SPTCS is Service Paws' own private standard. Service Paws is a private training and certification organization, not a government body; certification does not itself confer legal rights, which vary by jurisdiction. Nothing in this manual is medical advice: alert and response tasks complement — and never replace — medical devices, medication, monitoring, and professional care. Service Paws does not diagnose disability; handlers attest to their disability-related need (Chapter 15).

0.9 Versioning

Changes to this manual are versioned. A dog is certified against the version in force on its certification date; attestation letters cite that version.