Service Dogs of America

Pioneering Dog Sport! The United States of America now has its first and only working dog organization that recognizes Protection, Police Patrol K-9 and Search & Rescue titles through a National Registry, the United Kennel Club.

SDA MISSION STATEMENT: Service Dogs of America is dedicated to developing, preserving and using a canine's natural instincts, intelligence and tractability to perform meaningful, utilitarian tasks for humankind. The organization is comprised of individual members and affiliated local dog training clubs. It's goal is to use proven common sense methods for training both canine and handler while maximizing the social, family orientation and sport aspects of activities centered on dog training and breeding evaluation

Click any of the links below for an explanation of that title.

Service Dogs of America and the United Kennel Club are proud to announce the formation of a new working dog organization. Finally, America has its first working dog organization offering training titles related to service work that has the recognition and services of a national registry. Service Dogs of America will serve as the United Kennel Club's affiliate organization for promoting and providing events for all the new training titles. UKC & SDA will offer training titles that have been especially designed to meet the needs, interests and lifestyles of American dog owners. All titles have practical applications and much thought has been given toward making all titles as enjoyable as possible to train and entertaining to watch.

Protection Titles without tracking - All of the new protection titles exclude tracking as a requirement. The new program offers six new protection titles called Protection Dog Alert, Protection 1, 2, and 3 and Police Dog 1 and 2. SDA describes these new protection titles as titles that bridge the gap between Schutzhund and Police dog training. The Protection Dog Alert and Protection Dog 1 are designed around the training needs of a family protection dog, the Protection Dog 2 and 3 are advanced tiles to help identify and test breeding stock and to provide an advanced title for competition. Last, the PD 1 is a protection title used to identify possible police dog candidates while the PD 2 is the most advanced protection title offered by this new program and requires exercises that can be used for a police dog certification. It is our goal that the PD 2 will become a police dog certification for many jurisdictions.

The new protection titles are conducted with the helper wearing a bite jacket and option in pants. SDA will offers a new style of bite jacket that is padded well in the gripping areas but extremely light in the non-gripping areas. This style of jacket provides more realistic testing, and offers the comfort and mobility of a Schutzhund trial jacket. Helpers can wear regular scratch pants for dogs that have only been trained in upper body grips and only have to wear bite pants when dogs have been trained in lower body grips. SDA allows some lower body grips in our advanced titles; handlers must declare if their dogs are trained in lower body grips.

The new titles were created by combining and modifying some of the best and most popular protection and obedience exercises from many different working dog organizations into a series of new titles. When you've trained a dog through our series of titles, you will have a dog trained that can perform personal protection, sport work, and a dog, which is very close or qualified to perform police service work. These new protection titles can be performed by a wide variety of dogs!

The Protection Dog 1 title should create a large demand for protection dogs and training. This title requires all the basic foundation skills a handler and dog should have to become a safe and dependable dog for family protection. All exercises are reality based, have practical applications to real life situations and have a difficulty level suitable for introducing new people and dogs to the pleasures and benefits of protection training. The protection and obedience exercises required for this title fulfill the needs and wants of many dog owners interested in a well trained companion and protection dog.

Prospective Tracking Titles for the beginner to the most advanced professional - SDA will offer many separate level tracking titles that give our members many options and choices. Options and Choices are two of the main concepts we used to found SDA!

SDA & UKC offers new Search & Rescue titles. These titles offer foundation training exercises for developing dogs and handlers for search and rescue. The most advanced SAR title should qualify a dog to certify in any jurisdictions with certification requirements. Note: The SDA Search & Rescue program will eventually have its own section on our web site!

The new police dog titles are the PD 1 & PD 2. These two titles are offered to the entire membership. Our goal is for the PD 2 to become a title that is accepted as a certification. If a dog can perform a PD 2; it is an excellent candidate for police service. The PD 1 is an advanced protection title that will be used to help identify police type dogs and gives our members another advanced protection title for competition.

Some differences between the advanced Protection Titles and Police Dog Titles is that P-2 and P-3 dogs do a hold and bark while the PD-2 is a FIND AND BARK were the dog is unable to engage the helper who is behind a closed gate or barrier. The directed search is conducted in a muzzle when being performed by police service dogs, and some of the obedience exercises are different. For example, with the PD-2, there is no send out and no retrieve but there is more agility, a building search and a call off.

The Family Obedience Title is the only SDA/UKC obedience only title. However, obedience titles can be earned for the progressively difficult obedience only phases of the protection and police dog titles. Therefore, there are six obedience titles available.