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Ella is being trained to help someone with a disability, although we don't know who that will be yet. In a public big-box store with elevators, stairs, moving walkway, parking lot, grocery cart, strangers, and the trainer carrying a garbage can.  

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Dog-loving visitors at the White House sometimes wonder why they see several breeds of dogs there, even though the Secret Service uses exclusively Belgian Malinois. The answer can be found a great book, "Secret Service Dogs: The Heroes Who Protect the President of the United States" by Maria Goodavage. Ms. Goodavage writes about the bomb-sniffing PSCO dogs that are used in the White House that are non-Malinois breeds like Labrador retrievers and Springer Spaniels.  The anacronym PSCO stands for Personel Screening Open Area. The program use these non-Belgian Malinois began in 2014 because the Belgian Malinois scare people and thus people move away from them (which is what you don't want when the dog is supposed to sniff out explosives people might be carrying). These bomb-sniffing PSCO dogs are also known as: Friendly Dogs Floppy Eared Dogs These "Friendly Dogs" (the term used most often) are working dogs and they wear a black vest. Friendly Dogs are friendly, but they still shouldn't be petted by visitors because they have an important job to do. If you want to ask questions of the handler, they might give a quick answer, but since they're working, the author says that a Secret Service employee will often come over to answer questions, instead. Parade magazine had an article on White House dogs with this picture by Maria Goodavage:

The following is our version of the BARC (Behavior Assessment Reactivity Checklist) that we use to assess dogs that might be trained to help people with disabilities. This is not a full dog behavior assessment checklist because our version assumes that someone has told you the dog is nice and friendly (good with other dogs, not hyper, etc.) If you don't know much about the dog (or there is a chance that the dog might be aggressive), then you'll want a more complete version of the dog behavior assessment checklist  Put a checkmark next to the answer that best describes the dog when you meet them. Continue reading