[Coagdu] FW: [nagdu] A Great Blog Post to Share

Sun Oct 18 16:52:33 UTC 2015

Warmly,
Melissa R. Green and Pj
It is 'where we are' that
should make all the
difference, whether we believe
we belong there or not. 

-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu
[mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.o
rg] On Behalf Of Michael
Hingson via nagdu
Sent: Tuesday, October 13,
2015 4:35 PM
To: 'NAGDU Mailing List, the
National Association of Guide
Dog Users'
Cc: Michael Hingson
Subject: Re: [nagdu] A Great
Blog Post to Share

Hi,

The link had an space in the
word "service" that caused the
error.

The article is below. 

Best Regards,

Michael Hingson

petsmatter  

American Animal Hospital
Association

Oct

13

2015

Fraudulent service dogs harm
people with disabilities

by Jen Reeder

Theresa Stern and her service
dog, Wills.California resident
Theresa Stern
knows first-hand the value of
service dogs. The vice
president of Outreach,
Admissions, and Alumni
Services for the nonprofit
Guide Dogs for the Blind
uses a guide dog named Wills,
a yellow Labrador retriever
who acts as her
eyes, increasing her
independence by guiding her
through daily life.  

"I travel much better using a
guide dog," Stern says. "I'm
more confident
[than when using a cane].and
having a guide dog can also
make you more
accessible to human
interactions. I know if I'm in
an airport, I only have
to wait a few seconds before
someone says, 'What a
beautiful dog,' and I can
say, 'Oh thank you! And where
is Gate 7A?' or whatever. So
that connection
is super important."

Wills is a service dog-not a
pet. A service dog is trained
to provide a
service to a person with a
disability, such as vision
impairment, hearing
loss, or mobility issues. A
service dog can be trained to
alert when its
handler is about to have a
seizure, calm a veteran with
post-traumatic
stress disorder during an
anxiety attack, retrieve items
for a handler in a
wheelchair, remind someone
with mental illness to take
his or her
medication, and many other
skills. Under the Americans
with Disabilities Act
(ADA) of 1990, service animals
are permitted everywhere
members of the
public are allowed to go,
including restaurants, hotels,
stores, movie
theaters, and other
businesses.

That level of public access
has led to a boom in people
buying fake service
dog vests and pretending to
have a disability, something
that concerns Stern
professionally and personally.
When fraudulent service dogs
misbehave in
public places by urinating,
growling or acting out of
control, they upset
business owners and patrons
and create prejudice against
service dogs as a
whole.

"I get the idea that people
love Fido so much, but
impersonating a person
with a disability is just
unethical," Stern says.

But it's incredibly easy to
buy a fake service dog vest or
fake ID cards
online for less than $50-a
Google search of "buy service
dog vests" yields
more than 1 million hits-and
to lie about having a
disability. To prevent
discrimination and protect the
privacy of people with
disabilities, the ADA
does not require service dog
handlers to carry
identification or documents
about their dogs, and business
owners can only ask two
questions: "Is the
dog a service animal required
because of a disability?" and
"What work or
task has the dog been trained
to perform?"

"They can't ask for any
license or certification or
any of that kind of
stuff," Stern says. "So it
makes it easy for people to
sneak their pet dogs
into places where normally
pets aren't allowed, or to
avoid a pet deposit or
fee at a hotel."

Though business owners can ask
any misbehaving service dog to
be removed-the
ADA says handlers must remain
in control at all times, and
service dogs must
be housebroken-many business
owners are wary of potential
lawsuits or fines.
Instead, some argue to
restrict access for service
dogs, even legitimate
ones; in February 2015, a
lawmaker even introduced a
bill to the Arizona
House of Representatives that
would have permitted
restaurants to ban all
service dogs.

The bill was defeated, but
it's evidence of an increasing
backlash against
fraudulent service dogs.

"I love animals, we all do,
but if you take them out and
they're not used to
being out and they're not
well-behaved in public, that
type of thing can
start to diminish the
legitimacy of a real service
animal and then my
ability to get out with a
disability," Stern says. "So
that's a real
concern."

Fraudulent service dogs have
also impacted Stern on a
personal level. On a
bus in San Francisco, a dog
growled and lunged at her
guide dog and the
owner said, "Well, that's OK
because this is my service
dog." But Stern
countered that no legitimate
service dog would act like
that in public-they
have hundreds of hours
(sometimes a year or more) of
training to prevent
such behavior.

"And I've been noticing
lately, [when] it's pretty
obvious my dog is a guide
dog and I'm blind, I'm getting
asked more, 'Is that really a
service
animal?' At the airport the
other day, three different
airport employees
asked me, 'Is that a service
animal?' because they're
getting so many people
trying to sneak [dogs] onto
airplanes without having to
pay the pet fee,"
she says. "So it's definitely
starting to become a problem."

Stern hopes pet owners will do
the right thing and not try to
cheat the
system, and that business
owners will educate themselves
about their rights
and be suspicious of
potentially fraudulent service
dogs when they act out.

"Most people I run into are
super awesome and great,"
Stern says. "But it's
just a few [who] could ruin it
for the rest of us, so we want
to make sure
that doesn't happen."

Though freelance journalist
Jen Reeder is a
self-proclaimed "crazy dog
lady"
who travels with her dog to
pet-friendly hotels and asks
if she can bring
him to parties, she is vexed
when pet owners pretend to
need a service dog.

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-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu
[mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.o
rg] On Behalf Of Dudley Hanks
via
nagdu
Sent: Tuesday, October 13,
2015 2:45 PM
To: NAGDU Mailing List, the
National Association of Guide
Dog Users
<nagdu at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Dudley Hanks
<dhanks at dudley-hanks.com>
Subject: [nagdu] A Great Blog
Post to Share

Hi All:

AAHA's PetsMatter has
published another great blog
post.  This post focuses
on the detrimental impact that
fraudulent service dogs have
on people with
disabilities.

Please share with family,
friends, and neighbors who may
not realize how
critical this issue is, and
let them know that they can
become part of the
solution.

Check it out here:

<http://www.aaha.org/blog/pets
matter/post/2015/10/13/677862/
Fraudulent-servi
ce-dogs-harm-people-with-disab
ilities.aspx>

Regards,
Dudley, with Michener

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