About Us

PADS exists to help individuals facing the challenges of a physical disability (other than blindness), by raising, training and placing life changing assistance dogs. We support these successfully matched teams throughout their working lives.

PADS trains 3 types of assistance dogs: Service Dogs for people with physical disabilities, Hearing Dogs for the Deaf or hard of hearing and Facility/Therapy Dogs for therapeutic placements in long term care, group homes, hospitals and schools or Animal Assisted Therapy (AAT) settings. In addition to the critical skills/services the dogs provide on a daily basis, they also provide a sense of security and act as a social icebreaker to those who may otherwise feel marginalized by their disability.

In addition to it's fully certified assistance dogs, PADS places VIP (Very Important Pets) with children with disabilities, these special dogs provide a loving companion for children struggling with disability or illness and are furry and friendly social icebreaker.

The PADS Campus is comprised of 5 buildings located in central Burnaby, thanks to the City of Burnaby (who support our work by providing an attractive long term lease arrangement). PADS currently employs 12 full and part-time staff, has 70 dogs in various stages of training and boasts over 250 members / volunteers. In addition to our Burnaby Campus we run a puppy-raising and volunteer program in Calgary, AB (with one staff member).

Pacific Assistance Dogs Society (PADS) became a registered charity under the Societies Act February 13, 1987. PADS is proud to be a member of Volunteer Canada, Volunteer Vancouver and Volunteer Calgary.