Service Dogs for America – Training & Placement of Service Dogs In North Dakota

Service Dogs for America continues the rich tradition of encouraging and empowering those with special needs through custom trained service dogs.
Our goal and mission is to facilitate specialized training, education, and ensure the placement of service dogs to individuals with special needs, without causing financial burdens. We invite you to be a part of our legacy of learning, loving, and changing lives through trained service dogs.

SDA is a non-profit organization that enhances and empowers the lives of individuals with disabilities by providing highly trained assistance dogs and ongoing support to ensure quality partnerships. SDA is located in Jud, North Dakota (43 miles south of Jamestown, ND), and is the only non-profit provider of assistance service dogs in North Dakota.

At Service Dogs for America most of our dogs are whelped on-site at the Jud campus. We prefer to breed Labs and Golden Retrievers, as these breeds are smart, loyal and very patient.

We start training puppies at 6-8 weeks old with five basic commands – heel, sit, stay, down, come. At five months old they are introduced into the ICAP program, where they stay and train for about three months with one team, consisting of three to four inmates. This is a 24/7/365 day program. The dogs rotate back into the Jud campus at intervals, working with our trainers and volunteers.

By the time they reach one year of age, our dogs will have learned over 30 commands. Many times at this point we can detect what type of service dog they will be. Our service dogs are fully trained by the time they reach two years old, at which point they are ready to be paired up with their human life partner.