Assistance Dogs—What Should We Focus On

Dear Colleagues,

Assistance dogs are specially trained to undertake a variety of tasks to support individuals with disabilities. There are many benefits of assistance dogs, including their impact on the physical wellbeing and safety of the person as well as on psychological wellbeing and social inclusion.

The role of assistance dogs in society for the blind and individuals with motoric disabilities is widely recognized by the public. However, the use of assistance dogs is expanding into new fields, such as mental illnesses, and thus raises new questions of recognition but also concerns about animal safety and welfare being adequately taken into consideration.

Moreover, there are still areas that remain under-addressed in the field of assistance dogs, e.g., studies on the attachment between the recipient and the assistance dog, its role in the family as such, and what happens when the dogs must retire or die, including possible handler grief.

In this Special Issue, we invite submissions of original manuscripts on all aspects of assistance dogs. We welcome manuscripts from different disciplines to improve the understanding of assistance dogs; the relationship between dogs and recipients, pet grief, safety and animal welfare, the training and certification of assistance dogs (guidelines, what type of knowledge is needed), acquiring an assistance dog as a process of transition, the integration of assistance dogs with rehabilitation, etc. All manuscripts must consider animal welfare.

Dr. Tia G.B. Hansen
Dr. Chalotte Glintborg
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Animals is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• guide dogs
• hearing dogs
• mobility assistance dogs
• psychiatric service dogs
• human–animal attachment
• assistance animal standards and wellbeing