Part of the mission of Assistance Dogs International (ADI) is to establish standards and guidelines for members. By doing this, ADI is continually striving to improve the entire Assistance Dog industry in order to ensure that dogs are treated humanely, clients are treated with respect and dignity, and training is professional and of the highest standards. Assistance Dog users trust their lives and safety to their dogs, so everything related to the training of both the dogs and people must meet extraordinary criteria.

Over several years, members of ADI worked on a procedure for accreditation of member programs and developed an accreditation manual to be used to evaluate Assistance Dog programs to see whether or not they were meeting the high standards needed to train and place these special dogs. The standards evaluated in the ADI accreditation process include virtually every aspect of properly running a program. Areas evaluated include: safety and cleanliness of the training facility, fair and ethical treatment of clients, proper health care for the dogs, humane training methods for the dogs, criteria for screening suitability of both dogs and clients, criteria for matching dogs and clients, criteria for administration of all program operations and compliance with all legal regulations.

When a member program is ready for accreditation, a trained assessor spends several days at the training facility. The assessor interviews staff, clients, volunteers and applicants in addition to reviewing paperwork and files in order to make sure that all of ADI's high standards are being met. Currently approximately 80 ADI programs have been accredited (by ADI and/or by the International Guide Dog Federation). All programs are required to be accredited in order to maintain their voting membership in ADI.

Members or Candidate programs that want to apply for accreditation should review the accreditation documents linked below. The first step in the process is to complete and send the one-page application form along with the $1,000 application fee. Once the application and fee have been processed, a representative of ADI will contact the program regarding the next steps in the accreditation process.

ADI organizations based in Europe should contact the European secretariat, info@assistancedogseurope.org for their application.

Accreditation Application (pdf)
Updated January, 2012

Accreditation Procedures (pdf)
Updated January, 2012

Accreditation - Instruction for Accreditation Pre-Packet (pdf)
Updated January, 2012

Accreditation Manual (pdf)
Updated January, 2012

Annual Statement of Compliance (pdf)
March 1, 2009

ADI Accreditation Process Steps (pdf)

Common Questions and Answers (pdf)

If you have any problems opening these documents or need them in a different format please e-mail Suzi Hall at info@assistancedogsinternational.org