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.