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Dr. Bonita Bergin
invented the concept of the Service Dog to assist people
with mobility impairments in 1975. At that time she
founded Canine Companions for Independence (CCI), the
first nonprofit to train and place Service Dogs.
After leaving CCI In 1991, Dr. Bergin founded the Assistance
Dog Institute (ADI)
In Spring 2008,
having formally been designated a university by the
state of California, our Board of Trustees renamed ADI
the Bergin University of Canine Studies. The
name Assistance Dog Institute will continue to be utilized
but specifically to denote the university’s department
of assistance dog training just as the College of Scent
Detection will be used to designate its department that
researches and trains dogs to detect the vine mealybug,
cancer and other scents that will help humankind.
As the university
pursues its mission of "Advancing the human-canine
partnership through research and education,”
we feel that the new name, which also honors our founder,
is a more accurate representation of our work.
Dr. Bergin has been
honored with numerous awards including Oprah Winfrey’s
“Use Your Life Award”; Presidential Points
of Light Award; “What Matters” HBO TV; Council
on Disability Rights Individual Achievement Award;and
Alumni of the Year Sonoma State University.
Under
Dr. Bergin's leadership, we continue to break new ground
in "Helping Dogs Help People" - founding the
only university offering Master of Science and Associate
of Science degrees in dog studies, creating the High
School Assistance Dog program for at-risk teens, and
researching how to teach dogs to read and how to train
pups as young as three weeks.
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