Dog training--service, therapy, search and rescue, nose work, K9

I've heard a lot of stories recently about rescue dogs being saved from euthanasia and becoming work animals in clinics and police departments, but I haven't been able to find much detail as to how this is done.

How do the humans who train dogs for these purposes get their training? I would love to hear from anyone who can point me in the right direction, ex. certifications and organizations. I do some basic obedience for shelter dogs to make them more adoptable currently, but I would like to be able to do more.

Service Dogs Inc. 
Training Center 
4925 Bell Springs road 
Dripping Springs, TX 78620 
Phone: 512-858-1495 



There are many resources for adopting retired service dogs. 


Puppyintraining is a dot com you can look into. As well as saveavet and circletail, both dot orgs. 


There is in fact quite a boom on right now for these dogs, and if you try to get one you may be looking at a 2 page form.  About 300 retired military dogs are put up for adoption each year.

Best of luck to anyone who is genuine about providing a great home and family to these heroes.

Were you thinking of taking a dog on patrol, or interested more in police training and the like? I think it's amazing that you take an interest in training animals to be more adoptable. All animals deserve good homes, and all good homes deserve compatible pet companions.

I'm more interested in training a dog which could then be handed off at no cost to a medical or law enforcement professional. I understand training K9s in particular is quite costly, and many police departments could benefit from something as simple as cadaver search specialized canine, or a drug detection dog, or a bomb dog. I'd like to figure out how the folks who train those dogs for any or all of these purposes get their training, and see about getting it myself.