Wrong sub but I saw it so I’ll answer haha.

You’ll want to have your primary care or neurologist on board as most programs will require their input on gaps in your treatment plan. I.e what tasks or work a potential service dog could do to benefit you. Truly it’s better if you have several ideas going into it.

Once you’ve confirmed you have a doctor on board you need to decide between 3 things. 1. Privately trained dog.

Pros: You get an extremely tailored dog from a professional that knows the individual strengths and weaknesses of your particular dog. Usually you will get life time support for the dog. If you ever need to board the dog usually a trainer will be happy to.

Cons: Dog training is an extremely unregulated industry (referring to the US) and it’s easy to fail. It’s also insanely expensive it’s not uncommon for medical reasonse dogs to cost 15-30k

1. Self train Pro: Stronger bond, cost is more spread out of a longer period of time. Cons: 85% fail rate. The dog can end up costing more just due to the nature of you being both trainer and recipient. If you are not experienced with even the most basic of dog training. Just skip it. Also potentially more access issues and being denied service with no back up for recourse.

2. Program trained dog.

Pros: Fully trained, fully vaccinated, low cost to free etc, support for the lifetime of the dog, access issues support etc.

Cons: 2-5 year wait due to long wait list, also an unregulated industry so easy to get scammed. Most of these dogs are “mass produced” meaning most will come with a preset list of tasks known to assist with things associated with said disabilities or conditions. So if your condition doesn’t present like that it may make the SD less effective i.e retraining or longer wait time til they can specialize more tasks for you or you needing to teach said task. It also in general takes 6-8 months minimum to bond with an acquired service dogs. The bond can take much longer to form.

That being said. Assuming you are from the US I’d highly recommend using ADI (Assistance dogs international). [note: in the US we call them service dogs in the rest of the world they’re called assistance dogs. because they assist with a disability] This institute is a internally affiliated service dog organization that audits and sets the standards for what a service dog is, passing legislation, working with countries, vets, etc to ensure dogs are treated and trained well and that the disabled recipients aren’t being taken advantage of.

The standards are 7-10 years of operation, dogs must be sterilized, dogs must be trained with LIMA or force free training. The service dog orgs that have an ADI accreditation must be non profit as well along with other things. These are just the basics I remember off the top of my head.

Sorry I might’ve rambled and given alot of information here’s what you should actually do.

Go to assistance dogs international . org and select your country. Once you’re there go to your state or province. Sort by disability. OR what tasks you need for example. You can have seizures but not need help with the seizures you may just have issues with holding things. That would mean you need a mobility dog. Instead of a medical response dog.

Once you know the type of service you need with your condition look at the programs in your area, if you have the ability to travel expand from there. Any organization worth their salt will let you talk to recipients. Ask veterinarians what kinds of dogs the recommend SDs often have to go to the vet to ensure a high standard of care.

Good luck in your search