kichik:lumpatronics:pavusiing:kibbles-undbitches:mariagvogel:So I’ve seen the post he’s
kichik:lumpatronics:pavusiing:kibbles-undbitches:mariagvogel:So I’ve seen the post he’s talking about around tumblr and twitter, but haven’t seen this on tumblr. I think it’s worth sharing.(Also remember: do *not* pet service dogs!)I know very little about service dogs. @pavusiing if you are in a place where this doesn’t require too much emotional labor, can you provide feedback for me on this? (Or anyone else with a service dog, Chels is just the only person I know)I’m not trying to elicit emotional labor, I just want to know, if people are in a place to offer me perspectives. I saw the original post and it seemed to make sense to me that the dog would be trained to fetch an adult. So I want to hear from other people, because only seeing two individual perspectives doesn’t tell me much. I’ve reblogged a couple things about this already (last night so no worries if you haven’t seen it) that are super important to read. @lumpatronics also addressed this on their own blog if anyone wants to take a peek. I have a lot of feelings about people in the sd community being the service dog police. I encourage anyone reading this to check out https://www.ada.gov/regs2010/service_animal_qa.html which is the concise Q&A the DOJ put out on service dog laws. THIS is all the correct info. Not what this guy says. This guy has so much misinformation about both the OP and the laws in the US regarding service dogs it’s infuriating. I can go through them one by one. 1. OP is not a teenager. She is a grown woman. And a man minimizing a woman’s she to discredit her is sexist as shit. 2. The dog started as a family dog that showed the temperament for service work and was then trained. This is a perfectly valid way to go about training a service dog. And it’s perfectly legal to do so in the United States. OP however is training their dog with the help of a trainer so his comment is irrelevant.3. He is talking about service dogs as if his disability and his experience is the only one. There is no one way to be disabled and no one way to have a service dog. 4. Barking is not the only way that the dog can perform this task. There is no law regarding that. OP for example has bad sensory issues and cannot have a dog barking loudly next to her. 5. Going and getting help is a 100% valid task. It’s usually to someone the dog knows but it is okay and LEGAL for the dog to leave their human to go and get any other human for help. Just because this guy doesn’t like it doesn’t make it any less of a valid task. 6. This was in a grocery store. The dog was not a few blocks away. The dog went an aisle over. 7. The ADA requires that a service dog be under control. This could be voice control OR a leash. It is legal for a service dog to be off leash if the leash interferes with a person’s disability or tasks the dog is performing. So theoretically a person who does not have the dexterity to hold a leash could work their dog 100% off leash. If the dog is under voice control it is legal. In OPs case, the task of fetching someone would be hindered by a leash. The dog was under control because it was performing a trained task. Therefore this is legal. 8. Service dogs can be trained to ignore other humans but it’s COMPLETELY DEPENDANT ON THE DOG AND THE PERSONS DISABILITY. Cricket is very vigilant of her surroundings because I need her to be for my PTSD. 9. The only criteria that legally makes a service dog is that 1) the handler is disabled. 2) the dog is trained in ONE OR MORE tasks (meaning only one task is Okay) that mitigate their disability and 3) the dog is under control. That’s it. None of this other crap this guy stated is a law. It’s his personal opinions. His own experience having a service dog is not someone else’s and people are disabled differently than he is and he needs to back off basically.<33333I looked into this and this response is pretty much the most legally and contextually verifiable version of the issue I can find (note I’m reblogging from the literally original OP that this whole issue is about, and she’s reblogging from someone who linked an official .gov page about the legal federal requirements, responsibilities, rights, and limitations regarding service animals. I read through and the above analysis seems to check out, though feel free to double check me. With that said, I’ll let the post speak for itself.Take it from a service dog handler, there is a HUGE rift within our community between the recipients of trained dogs from nonprofit organizations and those who owner train, particularly those of us with psychiatric conditions. Like, I understand where the twitter OP is coming from, I really do. I’ve been repeatedly harassed in public by people who question the use of my dog because they’ve had bad experiences with fake service dogs. HOWEVER, dialogue against these fake service dogs almost always ends up devolving into censuring those who owner train, like @lumpatronics and I. Not every disabled person has the resources or time to obtain a dog from a nonprofit– you are looking at potential waiting lists of YEARS– or would even benefit from one in the same way. If I wasn’t able to adopt, trial, and train my dog Rhiannon for my condition I’d almost certainly be dead by now. The ADA succeeds because it’s flexible. I worry that by pushing stringent guidelines for service dogs, a wide swath of disabled people could find themselves disenfranchised. -- source link
#long post#service dogs