[nagdu] New definition of a service animal

[Marion Gwizdala]

Jewel,
    As for your concern about the definition as it applies to housing, the 
ADA does not apply to housing accommodations, only to the common areas. 
Housing accommodations are under the jurisdiction of the Department of 
Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Fair Housing Act (FHA). As far 
as I know, the FHA still provides for a broader species of animals and 
services.

Fraternally yours,
Marion




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jewel S." <herekittykat2 at gmail.com>
To: "NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users" 
<nagdu at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 28, 2010 9:32 PM
Subject: Re: [nagdu] New definition of a service animal


>I agree whole-heartedly about cats. They are wonderful service
> animals! Sadly, many apartments and public places do not let cats in,
> so they need to be designated as a service animal if they are trained
> to be such, such as the wonderful example of a seizure alert cat or my
> friend who had an alert cat because she was hearing impaired (not
> deaf). The story of the cockatiel is awesome...I never thought of a
> bird being a seizure alert. I imagine when he gets older, the bird
> could alert the people around the child if he has a seizure, becoming
> progressively louder if no one comes, or even instructing people not
> to hold him down when he's seizing or to roll him to his side? That'd
> be pretty awesome, since most people, when they see a person having a
> seizure, have no clue what to do. Or perhaps the bird could take a
> card from his pocket to give to someone that has instructions such as
> doctor contact, which hospital what to do and not to do, etc. But
> because of the limitation to the definition, this bird will not get
> the chance to do these jobs. How sad.
>
> On 7/28/10, Mardi Hadfield <wolfsinger.lakota at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I am very disappointed at the new regulations. I had a seizure alert cat 
>> and
>> she was trained to walk on a leash and harness and she was trained to sit 
>> in
>> a basket on my wheelchair.even though her alerting was a natural task,I
>> trained her to stay with me when I had a seizure until some one came to 
>> help
>> or I recovered enough to get up. Most cats would run off if they saw a
>> person going through a seizure.This took a lot of time and patience to 
>> train
>> my cat to do this. It was a great comfort to be able to see my cat lying
>> peacefully on top of me while I was recovering from the seizure, because
>> most people ten to get "freaked out" at an incident like a seizure. I 
>> used
>> to train seizure alert and hearing alert cats and placed them all over 
>> the
>> USA and several other countries.I also know a family living on my street
>> that have a child that has seizures and they have trained their Cockatiel 
>> to
>> come and tell them when Timmy is having a seizure and they are not in the
>> room with him.This bird will squawk and say seizure,seizure, and fly in 
>> to
>> the room to get them.I have witnessed this. They do not take the bird out 
>> of
>> the house,but this bird is trained to get Timmy's parents if they are in
>> another room and away from him. I think this changing of the regulations 
>> is
>> a bit like closing the barn door after the horse has already gotten out. 
>> If
>> the barn door had been closed in the beginning,the horse would not have
>> escaped. If they had regulated the species in the beginning,they would 
>> not
>> have had to do it now.But, that is typical backward government mentality.
>> MHO.   Mardi and Shaman and Nala,retired.
>>
>> --
>> http://wolfsinger-lakota.blogspot.com/
>> http://wolfsinger2-thegoldendragon.blogspot.com
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>
>
> -- 
> ~Jewel
> Check out my blog about accessibility for the blind!
> Treasure Chest for the Blind: http://blindtreasurechest.blogspot.com
>
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