Veterans Affairs committee  No, I don't think it matters how cases are different. It matters how you look at the certification process. Are you certifying an obedient dog or are you certifying a mental health support dog?

Veterans Affairs committee  I would guess that you'd have to look at various organizations throughout Canada. Let's put it this way: All, I think, have a good premise to help veterans, but it also goes to what your knowledge is on what's possible. Many of them are obedience-based. Is that good? Yes, you h

Veterans Affairs committee  They build that trust, for sure, and that trust is the base for everything. If you don't have a solid base on how that connective piece works, it's very hard, I think, to have a service dog that's going to be functional for that veteran in any environment that they want to go int

Veterans Affairs committee  If I could add, you asked a question specific to our program. In order for someone to go through our certification, we don't test; we certify. Because of the brain injury, we don't know how long it's going to take someone to get through the program. You may be able to get throug

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, we're going through an accreditation process, not only for our organization but for our mental health learning package and for our trainers' development.

Veterans Affairs committee  If I could add in, and this may help a bit, we know from the research that dogs will help you, no matter what. A pet will help you. However, what we found in the research is that veterans going through the program and learning with their dogs, going through all the struggles, dev

Veterans Affairs committee  I can answer by saying that Nova Scotia, Alberta and B.C. follow a standard that is obedience-based. Their certification or testing for that is about 45 minutes to an hour long, from the people I've spoken to who have gone through it, and there appears to be no mental health comp

Veterans Affairs committee  I've been working since 2015 with an organization that's based out of Canada—Hero's Companion—led by Kalyna Kardash. We went to build a service dog program in Ukraine, but the culture there is extremely different so we morphed it into a therapy dog program, with the therapy dogs

Veterans Affairs committee  I would suggest that if you're looking at a standard, it has to be more than an obedience- or task-oriented, directed standard. It's not “walk your dog down the street and turn around, turn left, turn right”. We've learned through doing the research—which backs up our own notion—

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you. Yes, I was part of the standards board committee. At the time, I was part of another organization. The falling apart of that board to develop a standard happened because there appeared to be different interests in what a standard should be. Then, from what I understan

Veterans Affairs committee  For an example, in what detail should the training of the dog be? What should be included in the standard? For example, there were parties at the table that thought very strongly that there should be a breeding program attached to the standard. I pointed out to them in one meetin

Veterans Affairs committee  I would suggest that if you're going to look at service dogs, then it has to be specific to service dog testing. A well-trained, obedient dog is not a service dog, but a service dog is a well-trained, obedient dog because of the outcome of doing the work.

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you for giving me the opportunity to present today. We work with individuals who have PTSD, TBI, OSI and physical limitations due to their injuries. The premise of our program is “Are you present? Are you safe?” If you're present, you have the awareness of your surround