People often ask me, "How can I get one of these dogs?"  "How much does it cost?"  "Where do I get it?"  There's no quick easy answer to those questions, because SSigDOG is a concept, not a training school.

I am rehabilitation counselor and an autism consultant, not a dog trainer.  I've trained my own dogs out of necessity.  I can't train dogs for other people.  That would take facilities and time that I don't have.  I can provide consulting services, but someone else needs to do the actual training of the dog.

There are basically three ways to get a trained service dog: Get one through a program, hire a private trainer, or train one yourself. 

Self-training is only an option for people who are experienced dog trainers.  It is very likely  not an option for parents who are busy managing both jobs and child care.  That leaves programs and private trainers.

Service dog training programs generally quote their own costs as ranging between $3000 to $12,000 per dog trained and placed.  This figure reflects their overhead costs for the physical facility, salaries of training and administrative staff, as well as costs of housing, feeding, and caring for the dogs, training equipment, etc. 

Most programs are funded by donations and do not actually charge recipients thousands of dollars for a dog, although there is at least one that I know of that asks recipients to run their own fundraising campaign to raise the money for the dog.  Most programs charge a more modest fee of perhaps $100 to $300 for administrative and equipment charges.  The recipient may also have to come to the facility at his/her own expense and stay for one to three weeks to go through training in how to work with the dog. 

Financially, this option generally ends up being a lot less expensive than private training, but there are tradeoffs: You have to go though an application process and wait for someone else to tell you whether you meet their approval to get a dog.  The waiting list may be from 1 to 5 years before you actually get a dog.  The program chooses your dog for you. 

At this time I don't know of any reputable programs in the U.S. that are training service dogs for autistic people.  (If you do know of such a program or are affiliated with such a program, please  let me know so I can update my files.)  I do know of one program in Canada that purports to train service dogs for autistic people, but I have been contacted by people who, after waiting a long time for a dog from that program, were disappointed to receive a "well-trained companion dog" that did not actually perform any assistance tasks.  

There are programs that train "specialty dogs" for people with multiple disabilities.  Such programs are used to serving clients with unique circumstances and needs, and might be willing to consider training a dog for an autistic person.  If you find a program that is willing to work with you, you should ask a lot of questions about the staff's experience and familiarity with autism.  

Hiring a private trainer gives the recipient a lot more control over the process: You can interview trainers and choose one whose geographic location, background and experience, and training philosophy are to your liking.  You can choose your own dog.  (I recommend getting one from an animal shelter.  If you're not experienced at assessing dogs for assistance training, I also recommend choosing the trainer first, and then involving the trainer in helping you choose a dog that seems physically and temperamentally suited for the work.  There are temperament tests that an experienced trainer can administer while the dog is still at the shelter, and the dog should also be examined by a veterinarian and possibly have some hip and elbow X rays if it's going to be doing a lot of walking or other physically demanding work.) 
You can start getting your dog trained as soon as you've lined up the trainer and selected the dog, instead of spending years on a waiting list. 

Of course the tradeoff here is that the private trainer is not receiving large charitable donations to train service dogs, so you have to figure out how to pay for it yourself.  Producing a well-trained service dog takes hundreds of hours of work over a period of anywhere from six months (if you start with an adult dog) to over a year (if you start with a puppy), and the cost can easily run into the thousands of dollars.  People might be lucky and be able to get sponsorship from local service clubs to help fund it, or do creative things with vocational rehabilitation or Medicaid waiver funding, but this depends very much on the resources that are available where the person happens to live.

Whether you go with a training program or a private trainer, it is VERY IMPORTANT to do your homework and make sure it's a competent and reputable program or trainer.  There's very little regulation of dog trainers in the U.S., except in California.  This means there are a lot of really good people working out there, but there are also a lot of well-meaning but unqualified people, and there are even some out-and-out frauds.  There's one "training program" that takes thousands of dollars from people and delivers untrained puppies (which the people could have gotten from their own local animal shelters for under $100), and then claims to provide training instructions by phone.  You can't train a dog by phone or over the Internet.  If you're not an experienced dog trainer yourself, you need someone who is an experienced trainer to work hands-on with you and with your dog.  So it's important to check background and references.

Now, what I can do in all this is to serve as a consultant on the autism aspect of it.  As I said above, I am not a professional dog trainer.  But most professional dog trainers, especially those in private practice, are not professional rehabilitation counselors as I am.  Even in an established service dog training school, which should employ disability specialists to help assess client needs and determine what tasks a recipient needs a dog to do, it's not likely that there will be someone who has extensive knowledge of autism. 

If an autistic person wants a service dog, and has a program or a trainer that's willing to train the dog but doesn't know very much about autism, I can do an assessment of the person's skills, difficulties, environment, activities, lifestyle, and support needs, and produce a report containing recommendations for things a dog could do to help this person.  The trainer or program can then use these recommendations in selecting and training a dog for the person.  If, in the course of training, some issue arises related to the person's disability, I can come back in to consult with the recipient and trainer about trying to find a solution to the problem.  

This is a professional service that requires a significant amount of my time, so I need to be paid a consulting fee.  I can't do a thorough assessment without seeing the person and his/her environment and routine activities, so if the person doesn't live near Syracuse, New York, I need to have travel expenses paid to go assess the person in his/her own environment. 

If someone is working with a program, and the program has funding to pay its own staff consultants, the program might be able to pay my consulting fee and expenses out of the same funding source.  Or if someone has sponsorship from other sources, that sponsorship might also be able to cover my fee.  The important point is, in calculating the cost of getting a trained dog, it's important to figure in the cost of having someone (whether it's me or somebody else) on the team who is familiar with the disability being served, as well as someone who's going to train the dog.  If you try to cut costs by sacrificing expertise about the disability, you're likely to end up with less than satisfactory results.

Much useful information about service dogs and resources is available from the
 International Association of Assistance Dog Partners.

For serious inquiries about my consulting services,  email me
or write to me at P.O. Box 35448, Syracuse, NY 13235  (enclose a stamped self-addressed envelope).

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