Joan Esnayra, Ph.D Founder of PSDS
The Psychiatric Service Dog Society (PSDS) is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization dedicated to responsible Psychiatric Service Dog (PSD) education, advocacy, research and training facilitation. We provide essential information for persons disabled by severe mental illness, who wish to train a service dog to assist with the management of symptoms. We consult regularly with mental healthcare providers in their efforts to learn more about PSD. We also host an online community of service dog handlers veteran and new. Please note: we do not provide or train dogs for individuals. We are an educational and capacity-building organization dedicated to responsible Psychiatric Service Dog community stewardship.
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What We Do / What We Don't Do
WHAT WE DO
If you call PSDS, you will likely reach our voicemail system initially. This is because we are on the phone continuously answering questions from mental health consumers across the U.S. and Canada. Please leave us a message, because we will call you back.
During the phone call, you will have an opportunity to get all your questions about psychdogs answered correctly. We pride ourselves on offering accurate and up-to-date information for persons who considering psychdog partnership. If it is appropriate to do so, we will invite you to join our online communities. Only mental health consumers are allowed to join these groups, and subscriptions are activated by PSDS staff. (You cannot sign up for these groups yourself, and we require a phone call before we will agree to subscribe you to our listservs.)
The most common question we are asked is, “How can I get my dog certified as a service dog?” Certification is not required under federal law. So certification should not be your goal or focus. Satisfying the legal definition of what a ‘service dog’ is should be your primary goal. The law requires training. We recommend training in three areas: basic obedience, public access skills, and disability-related assistance. Furthermore, you would be well-advised to accumulate evidence of your dog’s training in these three areas. Such documentation will be kept in your personal files at home and shown only to your attorney in the event of a lawsuit. For more information about how to train a Psychdog, please see the owner-training standard and public access standard in the ‘Training’ section of our website.
WHAT WE DON'T DO
We do not train or place dogs with people.
We do not accept donated dogs or pups.
We do not provide funding to individuals; nor do we track such funding opportunities.
We will not tell you what breed of dog you should use. This is an individual decision.
We do not mail-out hard-copy how-to literature. We don’t have the budget for that.
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PSDS' Mission:
Education
- To educate mental health consumers, providers, and the general public about Psychiatric Service Dogs
Advocacy- To empower consumers with Psychiatric Service Dogs to advocate on their own behalf
- To assist the legal community in advocating for the rights of Psychiatric Service Dog handlers
- To help ‘gatekeepers of public access’ understand their obligations under the law
- To partner with other mental health organizations in advocating for our rights
Research- To document efficacy of Psychiatric Service Dog partnerships
- To understand how Psychiatric Service Dogs are being used and by whom
- To identify Psychiatric Service Dog teams 'best practices'
- To establish inclusion/exclusion criteria for prospective Psychiatric Service Dog handlers
- To identify training strategies that work well with mental health consumer populations
- To identify barriers to Psychiatric Service Dog team success
Training Facilitation- To assist professional dog trainers in learning how to train a Psychiatric Service Dog
- To develop a nationwide resource of qualified Psychiatric Service Dog trainers
- To connect mental health consumers to a Psychiatric Service Dog trainer in their area
- To connect Psychiatric Service Dog consumers with each other for peer support
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