Our assistance dogs give people the confidence to live more independently and do things they didn’t think were possible. These dogs change lives.

Part of Keystone Human Services, Susquehanna Service Dogs breeds, raises, trains, and places assistance dogs and hearing dogs, as well as facility dogs, to assist children and adults with disability to lead the lives they want to live. We have over 300 dogs at various stages of training in our program.

We work hard to match people and dogs to form a successful partnership and follow each team for the working life of the dog and through the dog’s retirement. Whether our assistance dogs are retrieving dropped items or helping their partner navigate a crowded store, they’re assisting their partners to live full, rich, meaningful lives.

“Having [SSD Coriander] in my life made it possible for me to keep working,” said Ramon Selove about his first assistance dog, SSD Coriander. “I was on the verge of retiring with disability, but with her, I was able to finish another twelve years of work until I got to normal retirement age.” Ramon is now partnered with his successor dog, SSD Verna and, “Verna has been wonderful.”

Every step of our process of creating life-changing partnerships like the one between Ramon and SSD Coriander and now SSD Verna is based on science, from our breeding program through placement and the working life of the dog. Training begins the moment the puppies are born. At nine weeks, they join volunteer puppy raisers, who spend 15 to 18 months teaching the puppies good house manners and basic cues, as well as introducing the puppies to various public settings. The dogs then enter our advanced training program, where our professional trainers work with each dog to identify the type of work the dog is best suited for. Candidates on our waiting list then meet several dogs to determine a match, and the dog is trained specialized skills and tasks to assist with their partner’s specific needs. Everything we do is designed to create individually trained assistance dogs that will assist their partners to be more independent.