A Saskatoon-based service dog trainer, is looking to make Saskatchewan more accessible. “Friends would come to me and say, ‘I got kicked out of Walmart today,’” Candace Bighead, explained about her friends with service dogs. Bighead says she would ask “why did you get kicked out? Was it you or was it the dog? What was the dog doing? Was the dog barking? Was it misbehaving? What was the reason?” Bighead is the founder and training director of Prairieland Service Dog Training. She lives with a congenital heart condition, hemiplegic migraines, PTSD, and a panic disorder. Her German Shepherd, Bentley, has been by her side for nearly a decade. “He’s trained to detect migraines. There’s a chemical change that happens in my body that my dog can detect with his nose, and he will tell me, and I’ll be like, okay, it’s time to take some medications. That’s a medical alert.” Since she started her business, she’s worked closely with 15 dogs and handlers. “There are individuals out there who suffer from anxiety, and when they get anxious, sometimes they engage in behaviors that are a little bit uncomfortable. The service dog comes in and recognizes those behaviors and grounds them.” She recently proposed a number of recommendations to the Government of Saskatchewan, as part of the Accessible Saskatchewan Act. Notable recommendations are improvements on standardized public access assessment, clear rules for businesses and handlers, and a recognized provincial system. “I think we need that in Saskatchewan, we need to separate the pets from the really true working dogs out there.” She says Alberta has a provincial system that has standardized assessment, and clear expectations for public access behaviour. “I wouldn’t say Saskatchewan needs to copy that, but we can use pieces of what works and build something appropriate for our province.” In a statement to CTV News, the Ministry of Social Services says it will “continue to consult with the community and collaborate with the accessibility advisory committee” as they “address the seven priorities identified in the Accessible Saskatchewan Act, including the development of regulated standards for service animals.” The Ministry of Social Services says since the Accessible Saskatchewan Act came into effect in December 2023, and it’s begun implementing the province’s accessibility plan over the past year. The focus this coming year is the development of accessibility standards. That’s welcome news for Bighead, who says she’ll continue to keep advocating for service dog teams in the province. “My goal with this was just clarity, safety, accessibility, and just not creating more barriers for people,” she said. “We just need regulation without taking that accessibility away from the disabled people.”
