our philosophy

Recognizing the disabilities, celebrating the possibilities. We are an agency that is staffed primarily by community service professionals and service dog team members. We believe that a holistic approach to evaluating the needs of service dog teams is essential. The FSDS offers a comprehensive training program including service dog training, canine first aid and CPR training and TTouch basics.

The FSDS preferentially grants service dogs to community servants in need, including wounded police, military and other first responders. We also train and certify facility dogs for those agencies that provide services to abused children and other crime victims.

ACCREDITATION: The FSDS is pursuing accreditation with Assistance Dogs International, Inc. (ADI). Though ADI membership and accreditation are not required of any training program, we believe that the pursuit of excellence is vital to our success and to the success of our program participants. The FSDS firmly believes that we must hold ourselves to the same standards of excellence that we expect of our students. In order to effectively promote training and certification of teams in our community (though not required by law), we believe that we must pursue the program equivalent of certification for ourselves, in this case, accreditation. In order for others to take us seriously, we must first take ourselves seriously.

As part of our preparation we have elected to under a series of voluntary audits of our materials. Our Administration Standards audit was conducted in April, 2011 and we received no deficiencies.

On Friday, August 26, 2011 the FSDS underwent an outside audit of our Program Standards. Once again, we are pleased to report that we received no deficiencies. Here is what the auditors had to say:

"The files were extremely well organized and easy to work through". - Blythe Frausto, ASU Police Department

"The FSDS showed extreme organization through their different programs. They pay attention to details" - Allison Cannon, ASU PR Major

"All forms and policies and procedures are very organized and easily found. The requirements for the applicants and trainers is above and beyond the national standard". - Shari Miller, RN

"The FSDS makes the auditing process a breeze. They have gone to extreme lengths to maintain simplicity, and live up to ADI standards. Exceptionally well put together". - Becky Brooks, ASU Non-Profit Management Major Program

We wish to express our gratitude to all of the above individuals, who put aside time in their schedule to assist us in our pursuit of excellence.

We are dedicated to:

Providing creative solutions in areas where a gap in services has been identified. This includes identifying ways to provide outreach services to under-served, and in some cases simply un-served rural areas.
Creatively coupling community education with the direct provision of services to the individuals with disabilities in our community.
Providing opportunities for those with disabilities to become involved and connect with others, reducing their sense of isolation.

We hope that you will take the time to visit us periodically and explore our programs and services as we grow.

Thank you for your interest in the FSDS!