Vietnam’s Working-Dog Safety Rules: A Model to Examine

Training a working dog and preparing a person to work safely with that dog are two different tasks. Vietnam’s occupational-safety framework makes that distinction explicit: rearing and training working dogs appears on its list of work requiring stringent safety precautions, and employers have duties to prepare the people doing that work.^[1]^[3]

A new circular will carry that approach forward from January 1, 2027.^[1]

For a business, professional association or policymaker looking to develop a clearer handler-safety system, the value is in the structure: identify the work, train the worker and make someone responsible for ensuring it happens.

Where the rules came from

The framework grew out of broader worker protection, not a stand-alone dog-training licence. A 2013 circular already set out occupational-safety training rules and a list of jobs subject to stricter requirements.^[6]

Vietnam’s 2015 Law on Occupational Safety and Health provided a central duty: employers must organize safety training and issue a safety card before assigning employees to covered work.^[4]

The law also says training should suit the industry, the job and the scale of the workforce.^[4]

The work list was revised in 2016, replacing the earlier list. That version did not explicitly name working-dog rearing and training.^[5]

The 2020 replacement did. It included the phrase “nuôi huấn luyện chó nghiệp vụ,” translated here as rearing and training working or operational dogs, within a broader animal-work category.^[2]

The latest circular, issued on October 20, 2026, retains that wording and replaces the 2020 list when it takes effect in January 2027.^[1]^[3]

So the news is one of continuation: working-dog training remains part of an established workplace-safety system, rather than becoming a newly regulated activity for the first time in 2026.^[1]^[2]

What the approach asks of employers

The legal structure can be understood through three responsibilities:

Identify the covered work. The new circular makes employers responsible for determining which jobs in their organizations fall under the stringent-safety requirements.^[1]
Prepare workers before assigning them. The 2015 law requires safety training and a safety card before employees undertake covered work, a duty reiterated in current implementation guidance from Gia Lai’s Department of Home Affairs.^[3]^[4]
Keep training current. That guidance also calls for periodic training under the applicable rules.^[3]

The important point is who carries the responsibility. It is not enough to concentrate only on what the dog has learned. The framework also places an obligation on the employer to arrange safety training for the person.^[1]^[4]

Its scope should be kept clear. The wording concerns working or operational dogs, not automatically every pet-obedience class; the revised animal-work entry also excludes households that do not hire workers.^[1]

A model to examine where a program is missing

For a workplace without a formal handler-safety program, this offers a useful starting point. Instead of relying on an instruction to “be careful,” it creates a sequence: decide which work needs special preparation, provide that preparation before assignment and revisit it over time.

That structure could help a training organization ask more concrete questions. Which tasks should a new employee undertake only after preparation? Who checks that the person is ready? What should happen when the dog, equipment or assignment changes? Who is responsible for refresher training?

These are suggestions for building a local program, not additional requirements quoted from the Vietnamese circular. They also do not assume that a country without dog-specific rules has no general workplace-safety obligations.

Vietnam’s framework is worth examining, not copying uncritically. The legal texts establish responsibilities; they do not, by themselves, show how consistently those responsibilities are enforced or whether they have reduced injuries. Any adaptation needs to fit local law and the actual work being done.

Still, the underlying idea deserves attention: the safety of the person working with a dog should be an organized responsibility, not something left entirely to individual experience.