RAD Recovery Assistance Dogs

We empower our clients with the skills to train their own life-changing assistance dog

RAD Assistance Dogs is a Leicestershire-based charity that supports clients living with a long-term mental health condition and/or autism to train and handle their own assistance dog.If you’re wondering where to start when it comes to understanding our organisation, you’re in the right place.

What our assistance dogs are trained to do:

Here at RAD, we work with clients to teach their dogs behaviours that help mitigate the symptoms of a long-term mental health condition and/or autism.

Through our five-part programme, dogs trained with RAD learn the general public access skills expected of all assistance dogs, as well as more specific mental health support tasks such as:

• Buffering and circling for creating distance between the handler and the public
• Deep pressure therapy for sensory regulation
• Alerting to anxiety through scent detection
• Interrupting behaviours, where the dog will interrupt the handler and distract them if they become distressed
• Leading the handler to an exit should they experience difficulties in a busy indoor environment eg, a supermarket

For more information about how RAD’s training programme works, explore our Frequently asked questions.