ECAD (Educated Canines Assisting with Disabilities) provides specialized training for individuals with disabilities, preparing them and ECAD dogs for certification as Service Dog Teams. Upon acceptance as a client of ECAD, certain obligations must be met. The client’s goal in applying is to become an ECAD certified Team. In order to maintain the high standards required by ECAD, these expectations can be achieved only if the client fulfills their responsibilities.

Client’s Responsibilities

• Be respectful of others, including ECAD staff, volunteers, students, and clients.
• Provide accurate and complete information about current and past health issues, medications, allergies, sensitivities, and other matters pertaining to your health.
• Honor the Team Training fee as agreed to with ECAD.
• Attend all scheduled classes. Client is responsible to make up any missed class.
• Come to class prepared and practice the exercises learned in class each day.
• Use humane methods and tools with your dog
• Ask questions if you do not understand material being presented in class.
• Keep your dog in good health, groom him/her regularly, and be the primary caretaker of your dog.
• Keep your dog on a leash at all times, when in class or out in public, unless instructed otherwise.
• Clean up after your dog when out in public and at the facility during your Team Training.
• DO NOT take your dog into public places unless given permission to do so by ECAD and accompanied by a qualified ECAD staff.
• Know the community has a right to expect your dog to be under control at all times and to exhibit no intrusive behaviors in public.
• Understand in order for your dog to wear an ECAD identification cape, you and he/she must earn the privilege.
• Whenever you are out in public with your dog, you are representing ECAD and must not deliberately cause a negative reflection on the organization.
• When the opportunity presents itself, assist in educating the community, in a non-confrontational manner, on the benefits a person with a disability receives through the use of a Service Dog.
• To assume, as the client, the liability for any damage your dog might cause to people or premises.
• Keep ECAD informed of any health and wellness changes prior to team training, during team trainin and for the life of the team.
• Obey all ordinances pertaining to Assistance Dogs in the city, country, and state in which you reside or visit.
• Upon graduation, you understand that your relationship with ECAD will continue for the life of the team. Therefore, there are obligations that you are required to fulfill now and after graduation.

As a client of ECAD, you have the right:

• To be treated with a courteous and caring manner that respects and appreciates differences related to ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, values, age, disability, and economic status.
• To be charged a fee for our services in matching you with a Service Dog that meets your needs, this may include, but not be restricted to, living quarters,  life style, family atmosphere, daily routine, and many others variables that ECAD deems necessary in the placement of a Service Dog.
• To have all of your questions addressed in a timely manner.
• To be kept informed of the statues of your application and decisions in the placement of a Service Dog.
• To sufficient information regarding our Team Training dates to allow you to participate meaningfully in the placement as a Service Dog Team.
• To receive complete information regarding the matching of a Service Dog and how this process is achieved with the ECADemy Program at ECAD.
• To your personal privacy. You will be respected and your confidentially protected. We do not release personal information outside ECAD without your verbal and/or written approval, except upon court order as required by law.
• To review the records of the Service Dog with whom you are being Teamed with and will be given a copy of their health record upon graduation as a Service Dog Team.
• To be given the opportunity to realize your full potential as a Service Dog Team through training in ECAD classes.
• To advice on any behavioral or task problems that may arise if you have adhered by all of ECAD’s Graduate Policies (recertification, up-to-date- veterinarian records, etc.)