Assistance dogs

hello there, my name is maggs. i'm the owner of a rescue
scottish deerhound named serena. we have had her 5 years now & she is an incredibly huge feisty animal with attitude & a heart of gold.
i live in cumbria in england & am hoping to find out about assistance dogs. they seem to be recognized in the usa but not in uk.
i have a son who is severely agrophobic & who has discovered the fact that he can leave the house if he has a dog with him.
are assistance dogs just a phenomenon of usa?

Hello and welcome to Dogsey. As far as I know assistance dogs are a developing idea in the uk(except for guide dogs and hearing dogs - although it is becoming more recognised in other areas too - eg seizures in epileptics), there is an organisation that can assist you to train your own dog to be a recognised assistance dog(I honestly can't remember the name of it sorry) but this involves a week or maybe two of a residential course which obviously would not suit your agoraphobic son. If you wanted to try training your dog to be an assistance dog, all be it unrecognised, there is a very good book called "A dogs who's always welcome" can be found on amazon/ebay

ETA

http://www.dogaid.org.uk/

http://www.support-dogs.org.uk/

http://www.dogsforthedisabled.org/

They might be able to point you in the right direction

My experience is in the USA where we are still fighting for the rights of people needing the help of the dog. Our ADA is a great law, but useless with those ignorant of it.

In addition to the links above, try www.iaadp.org