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On this page you will find our guide for interacting with assistance dogs and learning resources for children and young people.
Assistance dogs are dogs that assist disabled people in their day to day lives. They are allowed to go into non-pet friendly places by law so their disabled handler can access the area just like everyone else. Assistance dogs are not just guide and hearing dogs but can help people with a wide range of visible and invisible conditions such as epilepsy and mental health conditions. It is important that you don’t believe that a dog isn’t an assistance dog just because the handler doesn’t have a visible disability. Many people can’t go out without their assistance dogs, so it’s important to understand that it is not a privilege to have one but a necessity. Even when it seems the partnership may be getting ‘special treatment’, it’s often the only way they can access a service like everyone else without extra charges.
It is important to never distract an assistance dog as it can put the handler at risk. Even if a dog doesn’t seem to be awake or is lying down, you still shouldn’t distract them. Here’s some examples of why this is the case
When interacting with an assistance dog partnership there are some steps you should follow:
Assistance dog handlers are often just trying to get on with day-to-day activities like everyone else. If a handler is getting some milk or in the middle of training it probably isn’t the right time to talk. The same goes for if the handler is on the floor or the dog is tasking, though asking whether they are okay is fine. A good rule of thumb is that if it’s somewhere you would talk to someone who doesn’t have an assistance dog (eg. a bench) then it’s okay to talk to someone who has one. Please read the dogs vest before interacting as some vests state ‘Talking to handler causes distress’ or similar and use discretion.
Even when talking to someone it is important not to distract an assistance dog, so always talk to the handler. Please don’t be put off if the handler doesn’t want to talk, they often get a lot of questions on a daily basis which can be tiring at times.
Teaching children about assistance dogs is important. So important that we even have a page on where you can find learning resources for them. If it’s the first time your child has seen an assistance dog in public consider speaking to your child from a distance about how the dog is working and you shouldn’t distract them.
If you have a dog with you make sure restrain them so they can’t interact with the assistance dog. Dogs can be as ,if not more, distracting than a human can be so keeping them a distance helps with that.
If you have a pet dog, it is important that you don’t take your dog to non-pet friendly places. This not only can be very stressful for your dog but can also put assistance dogs at risk. If your dog misbehaves it may cause a business owner to hesitate to let another dog in even if they are an assistance dog. Additionally, unlike pet dogs, assistance dogs are protected by law from dog attacks, even if they are unvested.
Teaching children about assistance dogs is a very important thing, especially too those who rely on one for independence. It can be weird or exciting for a child to see a dog in a shop where they aren’t normally
Here are our free downloadable resources:
Match the assistance dog type to the task
We have been kindly granted permission to share the following activity sheets by Red Bear and Hazel-Dawn Illustrations.
For children under 6, there is a cbeebies TV programme called dog squad which has 5 main characters, 3 of which are assistance dogs. This show can be a great introduction to what assistance dogs are and how you should react to them for children.
Guide Dogs UK have created resources for a structured lesson at school, youth groups or similar. There are two age categories:
Teaching children about dog safety in general can also be an important thing. If you only have time for one activity around dogs we would recommend focusing on dog safety rather than assistance dogs to help prevent bites. You can find more information on this here: