Canine Partners For Life

My service dog and I graduated in 2011 and having had Labradors as pets for many years prior to applying for a service dog, I thought I knew a lot about dogs, but found myself very impressed with the overall training process and learned a great deal from a very knowledgeable and helpful staff. It was with lots of research and many recommendations from past recipients that brought me to this organization in the first place. Highly regarded throughout the service dog industry, everyone at Canine Partners for Life cares a great deal about the dogs they train as well as the people partnered with them and it?s easy to see this fact even with brief interaction. I can honestly tell you that I?m extremely happy with my service dog partner, the training we received together at Canine Partners for Life and the lifetime follow-up we have received to date from the dedicated trainers as well as the Executive Director, who personally worked with me after class one evening to overcome a minor issue I was having. Our partnership has changed my life dramatically for the better, bringing greater independence and confidence in doing things together that we could never do apart. I have and will continue to highly recommend Canine Partners for Life to anyone interested in a well-trained service dog. Thank God for Canine Partners for Life and the difference they made and continue to make in my life and the lives of many, many others. more

I have been involved with Canine Partners for Life for over 4 years. I have personally witnessed abusive training practices as well as severe misinformation being presented by the trainers during Team Training. I witnessed the Executive Director, Darlene Sullivan, use her personal service dog to demonstrate ""how to give a proper correction"" --she grabbed her dog's face and yelled at her --the dog was shaking with her tail tucked --she had done nothing wrong and would stand and shake when called for any subsequent demonstrations. I witnessed the Executive Director lift a dog off the ground by her prong collar (all 4 paws) for eating a muffin off of a chair. Clients were advised to harshly correct a growling dog by yanking on the prong collar and/or grabbing the dog's face and yelling. Trainers told a couple of recipients using power chairs to run over their dogs to get their dogs to obey. Trainers told students to yank the prong collar if their dog would not retrieve --making training sessions stressful and causing several dogs to shut down. Several dogs who barked and growled at other dogs/people/sounds (sound sensitivity/reactivity) were allowed to graduate. One dog who pooped on the train trip into Philadelphia (and subsequently had to wear a Thunder Shirt to calm him because he was so anxious) still was allowed to graduate --even though the dog was exhibiting severe stress signals when working in public. I saw another recipient's dog wearing a Thunder Shirt as well. A dog that has to wear a Thunder Shirt to function in public is not suited to be a service dog --the dog is stressed and anxious and it is cruel to make the dog work. In a past graduating class, a dog developed seizures during Team Training and the team was still allowed to graduate and go home without knowing if medicine was effective or not. Canine Partners for Life is not an organization I can in good conscience recommend to anyone. They use outdated and inhumane training methods and allow unsuitable dogs to graduate from their program, which does not paint a good picture for other service dog teams and organizations. more