Future service dogs navigate security, board planes at Edmonton airport

Future service dogs learned some new tricks at the Edmonton International Airport (YEG) in November.

Thirty dogs, some as young as 10 weeks old, were part of the training put on by Aspen Service Dogs.

Head trainer Maria Illes says the training will teach the dogs how to help their future human partners through stressful airport situations.

"Just flying with a disability sometimes can be very stressful. And flying with dogs, it's on top of it."

Illes says being able to take a service dog onboard a plane will give people who rely on them more autonomy.

"We would like to give them even more independence and be able to fly on their own with service dogs without any support person," she said.

Koleta Kopanas and her 16-week-old puppy are one of the teams participating in the training.

Kopanas uses a wheelchair and is training her own dog as part of the program.

"An airport is like a very big thing. You've got the waiting time, you've got boarding the plane, staying on the plane, being chill on the plane with everything that's going on. And there's just a lot of factors. So I think that getting some experience with that is really good," she said.

Koleta Kopanas and her service dog in training. (Adel Ahmed/CTV News Edmonton)

"Once she is fully trained, we definitely will be taking her on a couple of fights here and there."

A spokesperson for the airport says the training will make the airport experience go more smoothly for all passengers.

"It's really about exposing the dogs to all the sights and sounds that their handlers are going to want to experience," said Elizabeth Dwernychuk of YEG.

"More and more people travel nowadays, so making sure that we're thinking about that airport environment for the dogs just makes good sense."

"We're very, very focused on accessibility. And we want to be that airport for everybody."

With files from CTV News Edmonton's Adel Ahmed