[nagdu] Woman with guide dog says civil rights were violated

[Jenine Stanley]

I don't know what breed of dog this is but sometimes people with unusual
breeds, such as boxers, Dobies, Poodles or Poodle crosses, or other mixes or
crosses, get a lot more access challenges. 

Heck, I got a serious access challenge years ago from a Wal-Mart greeter. He
was convinced that only German Shepherds could be guide dogs and since I had
a large Golden, it couldn't possibly be a guide dog. The irony was that I'd
been in the store for over an hour and was leaving when he made his
challenge. Granted, this was small town Eastern Ohio and this man was in his
80's, but the manager handled it very well, assuring us that it would never
happen again, and it didn't. 

I wonder too if sometimes we are too quick to anger over what are common
misunderstandings, like not looking blind enough, and then ratchet up the
confrontation. I'm not saying that's what happened in this situation, but
the Leader Dog vs. Seeing eye dog reference, which I'm so glad the reporter
explained, might have started something that could have been prevented. In
the article they did say that she's reported access difficulties with other
businesses in the area. 

To me this speaks of a couple different issues. Maybe people really are
uneducated and do the knee-jerk thing of refusing entry. Maybe too the
problem doesn't lie with the businesses. Could be either way.