[nagdu] Going to Jail - and the ICU

[Elizabeth Rene]

In law school, (1975-78), I worked for the St. Louis County, Missouri 
Public Defender  through the school's criminal law clinic.  I went to jail 
all the time to interview defendants.  The guards were skittish about what 
my first guide dog, Ingram,  would do if he "got loose," but Ingram and I I 
were always treated with respect by attorneys, witnesses, and defendants 
alike.

Ingram, his successor, Fiesta, and I prosecuted criminal offenses in Seattle 
for nine years, going daily to the municipal and superior courts, and 
regularly to the Court of Appeals, and to the State Supreme Court.  We never 
had a problem, except with the occasional snarky defense attorney who tried 
to attack me through my blindness or my dog.  None of that succeeded, though 
snarkiness can be a big part of  trial practice.  I practiced civil law for 
seven years after that, but rarely went to court.

Later, as an Episcopal seminarian preparing for the priesthood, I trained at 
several hospitals to be a board certified chaplain.  I regularly visited the 
ICU's in every institution, but was never barred from taking my dog there. 
I did keep him out of isolation units with communicable disease protocols in 
force for everyone, and learned to protect him against upsetting situations 
for him, such as emergency calls where people were belligerent or 
distraught, where the patient was actively dying or dead, the adult cancer 
unit, and the post-cardiac surgery unit, where he absolutely hated to go.

  Everywhere we went, the doctors and nurses loved my dog, seeing him as a 
stress reducer for themselves and their patients.  Patients and their 
families enjoyed his visits too, and we were often called upon specifically 
to visit as a team to comfort a particular child or adult.  If a patient was 
afraid of dogs, or claimed to be allergic, that patient's wishes were 
honored.

There are a lot of smells in hospitals that can intimidate a dog, though, I 
think, and the presence of highly-charged emotion, life-threatening illness, 
and actual death,  (as in a Level I trauma center with many ICU's), can 
truly put a dog's sense of his own and his handler's safety to the test.  My 
dog Wilson taught me the limits of his own endurance, and accommodating 
those boundaries by leaving him in a secure and comfortable place to work on 
my own in the threatening situation increased my effectiveness in ministry.

I think that each guide dog and human team who wanted to would learn to 
negotiate the conditions in jails and hospitals as best befitted their own 
personalities and working styles.  My only caveat might be that there can be 
some situations so intense that one's full attention has to be given to the 
human encounter, and the guide dog present there might not get the 
supervision and support he deserves and needs.

Elizabeth