Assistance dogs face special challenges that ordinary pets and other working dogs never encounter.
It is difficult for trainers new to the assistance dog field and inexperienced handlers to fully appreciate the extraordinary demands that public access work will be putting on a dog's nervous system and mind. It will be crucial to the success of a partnership to find a dog with the right kind of temperament to handle the job. Good health and other factors are important, but they will be meaningless if the dog is temperamentally unfit to handle this career. The most common mistake newcomers make is to take an unsuitable dog and try to force the animal to become an assistance dog. The attempt to force a square peg into a round hole may result in a dog that can perform specific tasks but the flawed temperament creates problems that ensue cheat the assistance dog partner out of much of the joy of assistance dog partnership.