Celebrated in pictures: PSDP’s 2025 psychiatric service dog peer convention in Long Beach, California. The galleries are in the order of events. Our normal professional photographer wasn’t able to be at this convention, so all pictures and video were taken and submitted by convention attendees.
Pre-convention activities
People started arriving a few days before the convention. We hung out in each other’s hotel rooms and on the beautiful hotel patio.
Meals
This year, most meals were catered. There were buffets or pre-packaged boxed lunches, and we sat together in groups on the patio or in the lobby to eat.
Circles
Circle discussions are the backbone of our convention. These involve all the teams in attendance sitting in a big circle and discussing service dog related topics.
PAT
This year we had three teams take their public access tests. Below are a few pictures from during the test, and a video of most of the test. The videos were taken by a number of volunteers and strung together, so parts are missing and filmed in different orientations.
Paw print art
Deanna arranged for all the dogs to be able to create mess-free nose and paw print art. Dave and Chiron show us how it’s done in the below video and pictures.
Candids
These are pictures people took of their newfound (and old!) friends during the convention that we didn’t know where else to place. They include people, dogs, and even stuffed dogs that stood in for missing service dogs.
Seal Beach
On Monday, after two days of sitting in a convention room, we were excited to get out and explore a local pier and beach area. The pier was the best part! And Dave and Chiron even got some playing in on the grass next to the pier! It was really cold, so the small dogs were bundled up or zipped up in jackets!
