Danielle has hit on the big problem. The majority of our clients are in our owner-trained program. The reason behind this is that we can service a lot more people and get more dogs with more handlers.
That being said, there is a huge process that we have to go through to make sure that this handler is ready to be able to train. We don't get a group of dogs or puppies from one litter. We specifically test specific puppies. Maybe out of 12 puppies we take two and give these to the handlers. There is a whole bunch of pieces of the puzzle that I really can't explain in just five minutes.
One of the biggest problems out there right now is that we are just overwhelmed with the number of people who require dogs. We have been having great results. It is owner-assisted, and that means through public access. We have two trainers who go out with a maximum of four people to help our handlers go out in public, because that's the biggest thing. We want to make sure that they aren't traumatized when they go out. If we see that they are being traumatized, we have somebody who can go with them and take them away from the crowds. If they start to disassociate, we have somebody there who can help them.
All of my handlers have been trained by me and are service dog owners. A lot of them no longer need their service dogs because they may be on their third dog with me, and now they can do things without them. They are there. They understand what's happening to the person, and they are there to help facilitate if something does go wrong. There's a whole bunch of pieces to the puzzle.
Where it doesn't work is when you have trainers who don't understand the process, who try to train the dogs. I believe—