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From Service Dog Training
Tiffany's periodic thoughts on service dog training, access issues, and other things. For more short essays on disability issues, see other related issues.
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More information on service dogs can be found on my main page
Treat College Like A Job
This post is part of the Bloggers Unite Disability Empowerment Event
“Treat College Like a Job:” The Sanitization of Disability by Disability Services Providers
“Treat college like a job!” It’s a nice statement, isn’t it? Encouraging, prompting, and generally well meaning…it’s the type of statement you’d expect to find hung up with thumb tacks on the wall in your college advisor’s office, a not-so-subtle reminder that you should be doing more than sleeping late and partying. What could possibly be the problem with this statement?
This statement appeared on the website for the disability services office at my alma mater. It was, in fact, the motto for the office. Students with disabilities should “Treat college like a job!” Ok, yes, students with disabilities should take college seriously, but shouldn’t all students? And, when it comes down to it, is it any of their business if students with disabilities are treating college like a job?
The sole purpose of institutions like higher education disability services offices is to level the playing field between people with disabilities and people without disabilities. These offices take many different names; in employment they may be human resource directors, or equal opportunity offices. Government offices have ADA coordinators. All with the same purpose…to ensure equal access and equal participation for people with disabilities by the removal of barriers and the provision of reasonable accommodations. These offices are not staffed with counselors or life coaches, if a student parties away her undergraduate career or an employee performs terribly at his job despite accommodation, these offices are not responsible. Since these offices supposedly hold the institutional experts on one thing, making the legally required reasonable accommodations to ensure equal access and equal participation to whatever program, service or employment opportunity is in question; why is it that we find them so very often in the business of marketing cute slogans, encouraging people with disabilities to “treat college like a job,” implying that if we try hard enough, we can do anything, or that the only real disability is a bad attitude?
People that work in offices like these are the “disability people.” If it concerns disability, and is in that institution, it comes to them. This does not mean, unfortunately, that these people have any relevant education or experience in this field. Often, disability related duties are tacked on to other jobs, especially in employment based disability services offices. I conducted an extremely informal survey at a recent conference attended by many new ADA coordinators and was surprised by the number of people that told me they were assigned these duties because they were on vacation when the vacancy arose and thus could not protest. Are these people well-meaning? Yes, usually. Are they qualified and sensitive to the needs of the disability community? Unfortunately, rarely.
So, we get cute slogans. These slogans come from a deeply seated discomfort with the concept of disability. For many people, and somewhat understandably, disability is bad, thus, no disability is good. The strategy of many offices then becomes to minimize the disability as much as possible. What they don’t realize is that not only is this deeply hurtful and offensive to the disability community, it’s an entirely ineffective method of dealing with accommodations.
The reality is that there is still a deeply held, if somewhat subconscious belief, that disability means there is something wrong with you. Disability is conventionally defined as something about you not working like most people would expect, ie, something that is wrong with you. What I mean by “wrong” in this context, though, is that disability represents to many people more than just a loss or difference of function in a particular physical, mental or emotional capacity, but instead something that fundamentally, inherently makes that person less of a human. For people that feel this way, the only way to make disability somehow “ok” is to make the disability not the issue. Struggling in college? You need to “treat college like a job!” Can’t get up that flight of stairs to your office? “If you try hard enough, you can do anything!” The problem is no longer the disability…the problem is the person, somehow, if the person with a disability has failed, it cannot possibly be because they were not provided with the tools to even have the slightest chance of success, it is because they didn’t try hard enough, they didn’t want it enough, or they had a bad attitude about it.
This results in a culture that cannot stand un-sanitized views of disability. They cling to the one incident where a person with a disability made it work without asking for accommodations and hold that person up as the model of everything a disabled person should be…the disabled person who worked hard enough, who had a good enough attitude, and somehow magically managed to get through life without any *known* accommodations.
What happens to the un-sanitized disabled person? They are forever compared to the mythical other person. They are told that so-and-so had a disability like theirs and didn’t need X, Y, or Z accommodation, so why should they? After all, they should just try harder and then they wouldn’t need any help at all! Inevitably, this method of approaching disability forces people with disabilities into the incorrect and damaging belief that they are never good enough, never try hard enough, and if they could just have a better attitude, everything would be ok.
Please…on the day when having a better attitude adds elevators and when trying harder makes print books morph into Braille let me know. I’ll come out to join you in looking for the flying pigs.
--Tiffany Huggard-Lee 13:15, 24 July 2010 (CDT)
Service Animal Disaster Information Sheet
In September, I’ll be doing a blog series on disaster preparedness for service dog users. This blog is sort of a preview, since I had it ready in advance.
Service animal users generally prepare their disaster plans with the assumption that they will never be separated from their service animal. Usually, this is true. Disaster services, such as evacuation and sheltering, must be provided in compliance with the ADA, and this includes permitting service animals to remain with their handlers. However, there is always the worst case scenario that must be considered. A service animal bolts during evacuation and gets lost in the crowd. A service animal user is seriously injured and the animal must be sheltered apart from the handler until the handler recovers enough to care for the animal. In these situations, it is important to have the necessary information available to disaster responders to ensure that your service animal gets appropriate care during the disaster.
You can find a sample emergency information sheet here. There is also a downloadable PDF version and an example of a completed emergency information sheet. I recommend that you keep this form in a safe place, preferably in your disaster kit. During an evacuation, a copy of the information sheet should be kept on your dog and one on your person. I also keep one with me when traveling. Hopefully you will find this information useful as part of your disaster planning.
--Tiffany Huggard-Lee 20:12, 11 July 2010 (CDT)
Combating Boredom In Your Service Dog
Recently I noticed that my service dog, Kain, was starting to slow down at work. When I would get up from my desk, he wouldn’t get up until coaxed, and in the halls he would walk as slowly as possible, definitely not his usual hard-driving personality. I wondered for a bit if his age was starting to show, he is, after all, approaching 8 years old, which is getting up there for a giant breed mix. However, after watching him chase squirrels in the back yard and jump around at dinner, it certainly didn’t seem like a lack of energy was the problem. I had one other idea, and it turned out to be correct. He was bored. The life of a graduate student during comprehensive exams and finals is neither exciting nor particularly active, and both Kain and I had gotten into a rut. I’ve added a few things to our daily routine to alleviate the boredom, and I give them here for your own use, along with a couple of other ideas.
- -Use a new or special reward occasionally for a normal task. This can make work more exciting for the dog.
- -Do something differently while working; take a new route around your building or change up your schedule a little.
- -Give the dog a new toy or bone to work on during your downtime. A puzzle toy can help occupy spare time.
- -Teach a new task or trick. This will give your dog something new to work on.
- -Set aside some time to play a game or interact with your dog outside of work.
- -Try a new activity with your dog. Take a rally or agility class, or find another exercise you enjoy.
--Tiffany Huggard-Lee 09:59, 29 May 2010 (CDT)
Let the Buyer Beware Part 2
Let the Buyer Beware: Part 2
This post is a continuation of Let the Buyer Beware about the issues that have been in the news lately regarding problems with medical alert dog schools such as Heaven Scent Paws and Betheden Kennels.
The first topic for this post would seem to be basic, but it’s an issue that many people struggle with: When to refuse to accept a dog. Many of the people who have received unacceptable alert dogs get dogs that begin to show troubling behaviors during training. Certain dogs should not be accepted under any circumstance, regardless of any explanation the trainer or school may offer. Signs you definitely should not accept a dog include:
- Growling, biting or lunging at any person, including children
- Unprovoked growling, biting or lunging at other animals
- Strong fear responses, without immediate recovery, to loud noises, sudden sights, people, or objects. This is not something a dog usually gets over or grows out of.
- Dogs with obvious health issues, severe limping, etc.
Dogs with these issues should be rejected outright. They are not likely to make suitable service dogs, even with extensive remedial training. Other signs that should make you question whether or not you are getting an acceptable dog are:
- A dog that cringes from being touched or that is unusually timid.
- A dog that is not housebroken.
- A dog that does not seem responsive to commands you have been told it already knows.
- A dog that appears stressed in public.
Dogs that show these issues may or may not eventually make acceptable service dogs after a significant amount of additional training (likely not), but they definitely are not trained to an acceptable level for a dog that is at the point of placement with a new handler. Dogs with these behaviors should not be accepted.
If you do accept a dog that is showing signs of trouble, or that begins to demonstrate problematic behaviors after placement, you need to document these issues effectively if you want to have any chance of pursuing either a replacement dog or a refund.
Most of the trainers that are placing substandard medical alert dogs are very resistant to the idea of replacing or refunding an unsuitable dog. As a result, it is necessary for the handler to be able to conclusively demonstrate two things: first; that the dog is unsuitable for work, and second, that the handler did not cause the problem and followed the trainer’s instructions on maintaining the dog’s training.
Both of these things require a huge commitment to documentation. The second the dog begins to show problems, the problem should be written down, along with any surrounding circumstances and corrective actions taken. If the issue was significant, such as an attack on a person or another dog, any police reports, vet records or witness statements should be copied and kept in a file. Small problems should be noted as well, with a note of any witnesses that could speak on your behalf about the issue. If the problem with the dog includes temperamental unsuitability for service dog work or insufficient training, you may wish to contact another dog trainer or evaluator who can test the dog and provide an expert opinion about the suitability and training of the dog.
Most service dog schools provide directions for ongoing training after you return home with your dog. One of the most frequently used defenses by a school that has placed an unsuitable dog is that the dog was suitably trained when it left their facility, and that the lack of appropriate follow up training has damaged the dog’s training. As a result, it is important to document all the follow up training you do with your dog. Keep as many records as possible, maintain a checklist of your daily sessions and video tape some of your training sessions if possible. If you take an obedience class or work with a trainer, keep your receipts and any certificates or notes from the trainer you receive. If you have to pursue a trainer or a school for placing an unsuitable dog, these records will be extremely valuable.
The final issue is one of contracts. Be very careful what you sign, and if you aren’t 100% sure of every detail of the contract, find a lawyer to go over it with you. There are a few contractual issues that problematic schools and trainers tend to display. The first one of these is asking the potential dog handler to sign a contract and pay for the dog before receiving and training with the dog. This is basically like buying a used car sight unseen. You have no idea what you are getting in return for your money and commitment, and you are locking yourself into a contract which may not leave you much recourse if the dog is not what you expected. In short, never purchase a dog or sign a contract for a dog until you have completed your training with the dog and are sure this is what you want to agree to. Try to get a copy of the contract before you begin training with the dog so you can familiarize yourself with the terms.
Second, find out what remedies you will have if the dog does not work out. If you have to return the dog because the dog is not suitable, will you get a full refund? Will you get a replacement dog? Can you choose between a replacement dog and a refund? Make sure you are comfortable with these terms before you sign the contract. Third, find out under what circumstances the dog can be returned and how allegations of an unsuitable dog placement will be handled. Typically, less ethical schools blame the handler for any problem with the dog and refuse to refund the money with the assertion that school/trainer performed as agreed and the handler subsequently ruined the dog. This is why it is so important to maintain detailed documentation on your service dog…if you must demonstrate that the dog was unsuitable from the beginning, you will have to show that you did everything possible to maintain the dog’s training appropriately.
Third, find out the fee structure of the school or trainer. In some cases, the money you give the school for the dog is considered a purchase price for the dog, however in many other cases, the money is considered a donation to the school, and the dog is provided (supposedly) free of charge. This means that if the dog must be returned for unsuitability, the school may claim that they have no obligation to refund your money because the money was not to purchase a dog, but was a donation to the school and independent of the success of the dog.
Finally, find out who will own the dog. Many service dog schools maintain ownership of the service dog after placement, either for the entire working life of the dog, or until the partnership has been successful for a certain period of time, usually about one or two years. However, if you do not own your dog, the school can generally reclaim the dog at any time, for any reason. If the school becomes upset with you, they could take the dog, as it is technically still their property. Be very careful when signing any contract that does not give you ownership.
And last, do your research on a school before applying for a dog from them. Check with the Better Business Bureau and the state attorney general to see if there have been any complaints about the organization. Check online message boards and news archives to see what people are saying about the school. Never assume that other people who are having issues with the school are bad people, incompetent dog handlers or are trying to harm the reputation of the school without cause. Always try to get to the bottom of complaints before you commit to a school.
--Tiffany Huggard-Lee 11:22, 23 April 2010 (CDT)
Let the Buyer Beware Part 1
Let the buyer beware: Questions to ask before you get a medical alert dog
Some time ago, I mentioned that Heaven Scent Paws, a diabetes alert dog school, was being sued by the Missouri Attorney General for failing to provide what it claimed to provide…dogs that had the capability of alerting. The lawsuit is dragging on with no real end in sight. Recently, I heard about another school that is coming under suspicion for the same type of behavior. This school is Betheden Kennels, originally in Amarillo, TX, but now operating in Oklahoma City. More information can be found here and here.
The lawsuit against Heaven Scent Paws and the issues now coming to light with Betheden Kennels do not surprise me. The service dog training field, particularly for dogs that do less well-defined work such as medical alert, provides every opportunity for a fly-by-night scam artist to walk into the field with no real background and start making quite a bit of money. Many of these people will present themselves as knowledgeable, caring, and well informed. It is up to the prospective buyer not only to ask questions, but also to know which questions to ask. This blog post will cover some of those essential questions.
- Question #1
- What is your background in dog training? What training has your staff had?
- To train a functional service dog, a trainer needs experience in these three areas; temperament and selection, obedience (including public access work), and in the service dog specific tasks they are teaching. Temperament and selection is probably the hardest to receive formal training in, learning to evaluate the temperament of a potential working dog takes time and exposure to dogs. For obedience, a trainer may be able to show that he/she has titled a dog in obedience or rally, has apprenticed with and is recommended by another reputable trainer, or who has attended a good dog training school such as the Michael Ellis School. As the alert dog field is currently working on a scent-based methodology, it is critical that trainers be able to teach scent alerts and scent discrimination. These days, trainers are most likely to learn this skill set while training drug or arson dogs, or while attending a formal school for dog training. Beware of trainers who hold up less reputable schools as their training credentials. Schools like the National K-9 Learning Center are well known for “certifying” people as Master Trainers after only 6 weeks of training. Make sure you always research any credentialing body first.
- Question #2
- Where did you get this dog? Has this dog been placed as a service dog before?
- One thing that is coming to light as an increasing problem with some alert dog schools is their tendency to pull dogs from shelters, give them rudimentary obedience training, and sell them to a client. When the dog doesn’t work out, the school retrieves the dog from the client, gives no refund, and sells the dog (with no additional training) to another client. A dog that is being placed for a second time doesn’t have to mean that the dog is poorly trained, but it does mean you should find out why the dog didn’t work out with the first person. Statements like “The previous owner didn’t do the right follow up training” or other similar statements seem to be common ways for these less-reputable schools to dodge the responsibility for placing a poorly trained dog.
- Now, it’s not necessarily the mark of a bad trainer to get some or all of their dogs from shelters or rescues, it just means that great care must be taken in selection and temperament testing to make sure the dog has what it takes to be a safe and successful service dog. Likewise, any service dog trainer or school that’s been around for a while has probably had some dogs returned. This isn’t always a red flag. Sometimes service dogs don’t work out because of a bad personality match, changing life circumstances on the handler’s part, or even a dog that simply wasn’t suited for the work and the school didn’t notice that ahead of time. The key though is to find out how many dogs have been returned (over 10% is where I begin to be concerned) and why. If the trainer/school always blames the handler and takes no responsibility for any of the failures, that’s a problem. While there are occasionally terrible handlers that are solely responsible for a service dog’s abject failure, in most cases, the failure of the match is due to issues on both the handler’s end and the trainer’s/school’s end. This doesn’t mean the trainer/school is bad, but they should accept any responsibility for the failed match that is due them.
- Question #3
- What is your philosophy of dog training?
- There are almost as many ways of training dogs as there are trainers, and there is no one right answer to this question (though there are plenty of wrong ones). The two things to check though are these: Can the trainer/school describe, in easy to understand terms, a comprehensive training philosophy. And: Is this a philosophy you are comfortable with?
- A comprehensive training philosophy is more than “We use positive training” or “We use motivation.” These statements might be a good part of a training philosophy, but they cannot stand alone. A training philosophy for a service dog school should include at a minimum: how the dogs in training are raised, including house training and crate training, the methods they use for teaching new skills (reinforcement/operant conditioning/marking/clicking/etc.), how they make sure the dog can perform these skills even in the presence of extreme distractions, and the type of corrections they advocate and how they implement those corrections.
- Whether or not you are comfortable with a dog training philosophy is a question only the potential dog recipient can answer. If something in the philosophy bothers you or just doesn’t seem quite right, either make sure you get enough clarification that you are comfortable, or find a different trainer.
Part 2 will include information on:
- -Examining a potential service dog's training documentation
- -When to refuse to take a dog home
- -Documenting problems if a service dog is not adequately trained
- -Contractual issues, what NOT to sign
To Be Continued
--Tiffany Huggard-Lee 11:58, 2 April 2010 (CDT)
University of Houston Disability Services
University Disability Services: Worst Practices – The University of Houston
College and university disability services exist to negotiate the process of reasonable accommodations between a student with a disability and an educational institution required by law to accommodate people with disabilities. Generally, the process works like this: a student will visit the disability services office, identify themselves as a person with a disability, and find out the procedures for making an accommodation request. The student then provides the disability services office with medical documentation proving the disability and sometimes listing the recommended accommodations. The student and a representative from the disability office then discuss what accommodations will work best for the student and are reasonable for the university to provide. Once the student and the office have decided on a set of reasonable accommodations, a document describing these accommodations is drawn up for each class the student is taking, and the student gives a copy to each of their teachers to ensure that the reasonable accommodations are provided.
Recently I've been investigating best practices in college/university disability service offices. As tends to happen any time a best practice is investigated, some impressively subpar practices have come to light as well. The worst one I've seen so far comes from the University of Houston.
Among the policies I've read, the University of Houston is rather unique because they add an extra step to the accommodations process. After the disability services office and the student have agreed on a set of reasonable accommodations, the university then gives each professor the power to refuse these accommodations. This means that after a student has provided all requested documentation to the disability services office and has agreed with the university on a set of reasonable accommodations, the student can have these reasonable accommodations denied by a professor who knows nothing of the nature of the student's disability or of the legal requirements for the provision of reasonable accommodation.
Is this practice legal? Of course not. Public colleges and universities which receive federal funds must comply with both Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and Title II of the ADA. The relevant regulation for section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act states "Academic requirements. A recipient to which this subpart applies shall make such modifications to its academic requirements as are necessary to ensure that such requirements do not discriminate or have the effect of discriminating, on the basis of handicap, against a qualified handicapped applicant or student." [1] Likewise, the relevant section of Title II of the ADA states "A public entity shall make reasonable modifications in policies, practices, or procedures when the modifications are necessary to avoid discrimination on the basis of disability, unless the public entity can demonstrate that making the modifications would fundamentally alter the nature of the service, program, or activity." [2]
I think it is fairly clear from these regulations that public universities (and private universities under Title III of the ADA) have an obligation to make reasonable accommodations to students with disabilities. The law does not say "accommodate if you feel like it" or "accommodate if the professor wants to." It says that a public entity (in this case a university) SHALL make reasonable modifications. It seems highly unlikely to me that a professor with no knowledge of the student's disability and no understanding of federal laws and the technicalities of reasonable accommodations would be able to decide that an accommodation is unreasonable when the disability services office has already evaluated the accommodations and has found them to be reasonable. One would hope that no professor would ever deny a student reasonable accommodations. After all, it would seem that a professor would want students to have the best possible learning experience and would strive to accommodate their students. Unfortunately, as is often the case, when a group is given unlimited power, some members of that group will abuse that power. In 2006, a student at the University of Houston with an undisputed disability obtained a reasonable accommodation request form for a required class. The professor turned down the request for accommodations. The student then sued. I have not been able to determine how the lawsuit turned out, but it appears that after further confrontation with the university over disability accommodations, the student withdrew from the university.
The University of Houston’s mission statement says, "The mission of the University of Houston is to discover and disseminate knowledge through the education of a diverse population of traditional and non-traditional students." If, by failing to provide a legally required accommodation, they denied a student his education, how have they fulfilled their mission? Has anyone become better educated? Certainly not. They have made a statement though...a very clear one. The statement is that the University of Houston’s commitment to educating a diverse population ends where the disability community begins.
--Tiffany Huggard-Lee 22:38, 5 March 2010 (CDT)
Anywhere or Everywhere
If you have a service dog, you have most likely had someone exclaim to you “It must be so nice to be able to take your dog with you everywhere!” This statement has always confused me; as a dog owner for many years prior to getting a service dog, I’d never felt a particularly compelling desire to bring my pets out in public with me, and as a service dog user there have been situations where I wish I didn’t need to have my dog with me. I think I finally may have figured out this common exclamation …it’s a question of vocabulary.
As a service dog user, I take my dog almost everywhere. The dog is my chosen mobility device, so I don’t really have the option of leaving him at home very often without running the risk that the high level of working behavior expected of him as a service dog will begin to diminish. So, my dog goes with me pretty much everywhere, school, the grocery store, the movies, even those times and places when it it’s not terribly convenient to have a dog with me, my dog is usually there.
On the other hand, if we imagine a world where dogs were allowed in all public places, owners of non-service dogs could choose to take their dogs with them everywhere too. They would have the option of taking their dog to school with them, or to the grocery store, but the difference is that they would not need to. They would not suffer any inconvenience by not taking their dog, and the average pet dog does not have a level of training that must be maintained by consistent public exposure. In a world like this, I would expect to see people bringing their dogs to a lot more places than they do now, but I think that even the most dedicated pet owners would still choose not bring their dogs into certain situations where service dog users take their dogs regularly. For instance, I don’t think we’d see too many pets (though there would always be the occasional one) in these circumstances:
-Those times when you see service dog users are juggling a dog, an umbrella and a doggy pick-up bag in the pouring rain.
-A rock concert or major sporting event where it is crowded and loud and people want to mill around freely
-A fancy date
-Major business conferences or events
The list could go on, but the point I’m trying to make is this: What pet owners are actually saying when they exclaim to service dog users about the delight of taking a dog everywhere is that they’d like the ability to take their pets where and when it is convenient for them. These people don’t actually want to take their dogs everywhere, or even almost everywhere like service dog users do. What they seem to mean is they’d like the ability to take their dogs anywhere, but when it strikes their fancy to do so.
My guest post at Day In Washington from last week can be found here
--Tiffany Huggard-Lee 07:53, 20 February 2010 (CDT)
An Open Letter to the Arthritis Foundation
Dear Arthritis Foundation,
A number of years ago I ran a Jingle Bell 5K run that benefited your organization. Since that time, I’ve been on your email list. In November, I received another email from your organization. The subject was “Tiffany, Your independence is at stake.” Intrigued, I opened the email to find this question, “Tiffany, Are you scared of arthritis?” I answered “no” in my head and scrolled down to find the answer, in bold type, all caps was “YOU SHOULD BE.” The email goes on to explain that with arthritis, my every movement would be “shattered by pain” and that having arthritis would affect my independence, my mobility, and my quality of life. The email then asks me to donate to help in the battle against this “dreadful disease.”
Let me explain why I’m not scared of arthritis. I’m not scared of arthritis because I’ve had arthritis for years. Arthritis is not a walk in the park, but it’s not the end of the world either. I still have my independence, I still have my mobility, and I still have an outstanding quality of life. How could this be with such a “dreadful disease?” It’s simple. I adapted. I learned to manage my chronic pain with medication, chiropractic treatments, and massage. I learned to increase my mobility with a service dog and crutches. I learned to organize things in my house so I could do as many things as possible without assistance. I’ve made a few modifications at school and in my job to ensure I can be just as productive as everyone else. In short, my life is very average. I go to graduate school, I work as a teaching assistant and a dog trainer, and I go grocery shopping and do my laundry.
I refuse to be scared of arthritis, and I wouldn’t recommend anyone else be scared of it either. Sometimes arthritis can be prevented, and for those people, that’s wonderful. Mine could not be prevented, and that is true for many others as well. For those of us that cannot prevent arthritis, and even those who can but choose not to, it is counterproductive to have an organization that purports to assist us insist that we need to live in a constant state of fear that we might one day lose our independence, mobility and quality of life, especially since this is not true. This email is, quite simply, a fear tactic aimed at convincing those who do not yet have arthritis that if they do not give money right now, they may one day have horrible things happen to them.
In addition to the deplorable use of fear tactics to attract donations, this campaign presents a skewed view of people with disabilities like arthritis. People with disabilities have enough trouble with social acceptance already without having an organization like yours perpetuate negative stereotypes about the independence and quality of life of people with disabilities. People with disabilities are unemployed and underemployed at a much higher rate than people without disabilities. Much of this is due to negative stereotypes of people with disabilities. What could prompt an organization like yours, designed to help people with one of the more common causes of disability, act in a way that directly undermines the social acceptance the disability community has worked so hard to obtain? From the looks of this email, the answer is simple. Money. If it gets donations, you’ll say it, with no concern or consideration for how many people it may hurt along the way. In the long run, organizations like yours that stoop to such level end up hurting the disability community more than they help.
--Tiffany Huggard-Lee 11:47, 6 February 2010 (CDT)
The Unspoken Rules of Service Dog Etiquette
Most people these days know the basics of service dog etiquette: Don’t distract the dog, ask before petting, talk to the person not the dog, etc. This isn’t the whole story though, even if people actually followed those rules. Here are some other rules service dog user wish everyone knew:
- Yes, I have a dog. I am aware of that. You really don’t need to look at me and say "It's a dog!"
- Asking if my dog bites is not the same as asking if you can pet my dog. Just because my dog doesn’t bite doesn’t automatically mean you can pet him.
- Please don’t go out of your way to point out my dog to your child. Chances are, your child has seen a dog before. If they don't see mine, it's ok. Few things are more annoying than to be followed around a grocery store with someone saying "Look little Johnny, it’s a dog, do you see the dog? Little Johnny, there’s a dog over there, look at the doggy."
- Similar to the above rule, please don’t use my dog as your babysitter. Telling your little kids to “look at the doggy” and then disappearing into a changing room leaving them with me and the dog is not ok. I am not your babysitter, and neither is my dog.
- Don't throw things at my dog. I understand you might be surprised to see a dog, or even scared of dogs. Needless to say, I'm not bringing my dog around with me just to terrify people. If you’re scared, say so, and I'll try to stay away from you. But seriously, don't throw things at my dog.
- Kids are curious, and that's ok. We can hear them ask you questions, and we can hear you hissing at them not to stare. This reinforces the idea that people with disabilities are scary or fundamentally different from everyone else.
- While many service dog users are happy to answer questions about their dog, please recognize that there are times you should not ask. If I'm on the phone, obviously busy, having an intimate dinner with my husband, please don’t come over to ask about my dog.
- No animal is perfect. Sometimes a dog will refuse a command or act like an idiot. Unless someone is being endangered by the behavior, please hold your comments. Service dogs sometimes need to be corrected. Failing to correct our dogs' misbehavior could put us in danger later on, so it is essential that we give timely and effective corrections. As service dog users, we know the appropriate and humane way to correct our dogs. It is not ok to insert yourself into our business because you don't like the way we correct out dogs. Not only is it horribly rude, the opinion of a random stranger is not going to change the way we interact with our dogs.
--Tiffany Huggard-Lee 09:53, 9 January 2010 (CDT)
H.R. 4378
Granting Rights to Certified Service Animal Trainers
Recently, Rep. Larry Kissell proposed House Resolution 4378, which supports an amendment to the ADA that would grant certified service animal trainers public access with service animals in training. The full text of the bill can be found here.
I have two main problems with this legislation, one philosophical, the other more practical.
Philosophically, I have a problem with anything besides civil rights protection for people with disabilities included in the ADA. The disability community fought very hard for this legislation to protect the rights of people with disabilities to have equal access to public places, transportation services, and competitive employment. Adding protections for non-disabled service providers weakens the impact of the ADA and opens the door for other amendments that would further weaken the ADA. If service dog trainers are covered in the ADA, what is there to prevent laws regarding people who repair wheelchairs, or provide personal care services? While these things may in fact require laws and regulation, the civil rights legislation that protects people with disabilities is not the place to put it.
Practically, I feel the fact that this resolution limits trainer access to trainers certified by accredited schools not only unfairly limits public access to a small group of trainers who are not substantively superior to other trainers, it may be the beginning of a slippery slope towards restricting who can train service animals in the United States. Currently, access rights for trainers are determined by state or local law, some states protect all trainers, including owner-trainers, others protect school-affiliated trainers, and some (though increasingly few) don’t have legislation on the issue at all. If a person is training a service animal and they are not covered for public access under their state law, that person is responsible for working with public places to find suitable areas where the dog can practice in public. Speaking as both a service dog user and trainer, I can say that I have never once had a public accommodation tell me I couldn’t enter with a dog in training. In addition, I am not aware of any substantial and widespread issues with service animals training in public. This legislation seems to have come largely out of nowhere.
The certification and accreditation statements in this resolution bother me. This seems to be establishing a hierarchy for service dogs, at least in the training stage, where dogs being trained by certified trainers from accredited schools are considered more worthy of training in public than dogs being trained by owner trainers or non-accredited schools. This could be a problem, especially given how few schools would meet these criteria. The reality is that there is really only one organization 'accrediting' non-guide service dog schools, and that is Assistance Dogs International. ADI also accredits guide dog schools, and many guide dog schools are also accredited by the International Guide Dog Federation. If we look at how many service dog schools exist, only a very small percentage of these schools are accredited by any organization. As far as certification of trainers, only California currently certifies trainers at all, and they only certify guide dog trainers. Accredited schools who 'certify' their own trainers do so on their own judgment, there is no standardized methodology for determining if someone is qualified to be a service dog trainer. Further, the assumption that because a school is accredited by someone, it must be better dog, is just that, a baseless assumption. While my views about ADI are a topic for a later post, it is safe to say that the dogs produced from these programs are no better than dogs coming from non-accredited schools or owner trainers, and in many cases they are worse. If public accommodations think that dogs being trained by accredited schools will be better behaved in public, they will be very disappointed.
In addition, if such a hierarchy is established for dogs in training, it doesn’t seem to be much of a leap to see this hierarchy eventually extended to other protections for service dog users, including the most basic right of public access. I think at this point it is best that access for dogs in training be left for states to determine and individual schools and trainers to negotiate with public accommodations.
--Tiffany Huggard-Lee 09:27, 2 January 2010 (CDT)
