WHO?

ABOUT OUR DOGS

ABOUT OUR PARTNERSHIPS

GOVERNANCE

WHO ARE DOGS FOR THE DISABLED?

Dogs for the Disabled is a unique charity founded in 2007 to improve the lives of children and adults living with physical disabilities in Ireland. We deliver approximately 28 fully trained assistance / therapy-dogs each year to our profoundly disabled partners. The dogs that do not progress/qualify (through our rigorous training programme) as fully-qualified Assistance Dogs, go on to career as a therapy-dog.

We operate on a budget of approx. €450,000 per year. We have 6 full-time and 4 part-time staff and the rest of our team is made up of our wonderful volunteers.

  • We have developed a unique Assistance Dog Stability Programme for children.
  • Our long term vision is to have a global reach by replicating our Assistance Dog Stability Programme around the world.
  • We support each of our dogs for their entire life – from birth through to retirement.
  • We run an ethical breeding and training programme – breeding and training all our own dogs in-house.
  • Every dog we train ends up as either a Fully Qualified Assistance Dog or as a Therapy Dog.
  • Our goal is to continue serving and helping the most vulnerable in society.
  • We work with the Irish Prison Service whereby inmates are actively involved in taking care and training of our pups.
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What our Partners Pay for one of our Assistance Dogs
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What we spend on each of our Assistance Dogs over their Entire Lifetime
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The Waiting List for one our Assistance Dogs
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Assistance / Therapy Dogs Trained in 2021

ABOUT OUR DOGS

Our assistance dogs are specially trained to assist physically disabled children and adults to carry out a range of practical tasks in order to achieve greater independence. Every dog is trained to help with simple everyday tasks such as opening/closing doors, picking up dropped items. Each dog is trained to cater for the needs of the specific client to enable them to live life with greater independence.

MORE ABOUT OUR DOGS…

ABOUT OUR PARTNERSHIPS

Each Assistance Dog is trained to help his or her new partner but is also reliant on them to provide for their needs including exercise, feeding, love and care. As a result, encourages the them to become more active and outgoing in their community by taking their assistance dog for walks and engaging with the public at large. Thus increases confidence, encourages them to take up new activities e.g. returning to work or further education. Our partnerships have found the experience for getting an assistance dog life changing.

MORE ABOUT OUR PARTNERSHIPS…

GOVERNANCE

We hold ourselves accountable to a very high standard of governance. Here are some examples of how we do this:

  • We are Fully Accredited by Assistance Dogs International – since 2010.
  • We have been audited three times by Assistance Dogs International, the last time in 2021.
  • We are Fully SORP Audited
  • We are Fully Compliant with the Governance Code
  • We are Governed by a 5 Member Independent Board

Our Board Members

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Accredited by Assistance Dogs International (ADI)
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Ethical Breeding Programme (We breed ALL our dogs ourselves)
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Transparent Code of Governance
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Compliant with The Governance Code