Guide dogs: for people who are blind or with visual impairments.

Hearing dogs: for people who are deaf or hard of hearing.

Service dogs: for people with disabilities other than vision or hearing, such as physical disabilities, psychiatric disabilities, autism, seizures, and other medical conditions.

• Visit an animal shelter.
• Watch the reaction/interaction of the child with dogs of friends & family.
• Find a service dog organization in the area and ask to visit (most such organizations welcome the addition of children and strangers as they train their dogs and it is a good environment in which to assure that the child is not in harm’s way from unknown animals),
• Rent a movie about dogs and see if the child is interested,
• Read children’s books about dogs,
• Watch a lot of animal planet shows about dogs & of course, have conversations with the child (if possible) about how they feel about dogs.