Owning a dog is a popular thing here in the United States, as dogs are hugely beloved all throughout the country. As a matter of fact, only cats are more popular in terms of numbers. These numbers don’t lie, showing that there are more than 75 million pet dogs living here in the United States, which means that this is the country with the most pet dogs of anywhere in the world. And for many people, these dogs are very much a part of the family, so much so that up to 45% of all dog owning households will actually readily allow the dog in question to sleep in bed with its human owners.
Of course, there are a great many things to consider when it comes to getting a dog. First, you’ll need to decide on how old your ideal dog will be. If you’re looking for a puppy, you’ll likely need to find a reputable breeder. Puppies, as well as kittens, are typically able to be adopted once they have reached eight weeks of age, but not before this point. They are still incredibly young, however, and will be able to be trained with a good deal of ease. Adopting an older dog can be harder, but you will have more luck here if you are looking to get a dog from a shelter. Older dogs can be stuck with bad habits, but the right owner can help to make a huge change for them, showing them the love and support that they might not have had elsewhere in life.
Service dogs are also hugely important all throughout the United States, as service dogs go above and beyond the role of family pet into something even more important. Service dogs, after all, are trained from a very young age. For the typical service dog, training will begin at around four months of age, a mere 16 weeks. Because training for service dogs is able to start so early on, service dogs are able to become the most effective at the job that they will later go on to do. And service dogs can be useful for any number of situations and applications.
For instance, PTSD service dogs have become more and more necessary for many people, from veterans to those who have suffered other types of trauma. PTSD service dogs can alert their owners to an oncoming episode of PTSD, and can even help them to cope with one that is already happening. And the PTSD service dog is most certainly not the only kind of service dog out there.
In addition to the PTSD service dog, seizure response service dogs are doing important work as well. For people with seizure disorders of any kind, having access to the knowledge of when they are about to have a seizure can actually keep them from coming to serious harm. Unfortunately, people who have a seizure unexpectedly are all too likely to fall and hit their head, something that can lead to serious complications – and even, tragically, death. But when service dogs trained to detect an oncoming seizure can be employed, such risks can be quite dramatically lowered indeed. As a matter of fact, such risks can be all but eradicated. Diabetic service dogs serve a similar role, alerting their owner to any oncoming danger in relation to their diabetes. Many dogs are capable of this through smell, as dogs have up to 200 million scent receptors – more, even – in their nose. In comparison to the mere 5 million that human people have, this makes dogs incredibly powerful in their sense of smell indeed, capable of doing things and detecting things that we could only dream of.
At the end of the day, there is just no denying the immensely important role that service dogs play. Service dogs save lives, and they help to make the lives of a great number of people infinitely higher in quality and even more livable, for that matter. Without service dogs, many people would not be getting the help that they need, to say the very lesat on the subject at hand.
