[nagdu] Garden State recognizes first ever Assistance Animal Recognition

[Ginger Kutsch]

Garden State recognizes first ever Assistance Animal Recognition 

NBC40.net

August 15, 2013

http://www.nbc40.net/story/23141647/garden-state-recognizes-first-ever-assis
tance-animal-recognition-day

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EGG HARBOR CITY -  Wednesday marks the first ever Assistance Animal
Recognition Day in New Jersey.

 

"She lights up my life, that's the best thing I can say," says guide dog
user Kathy Rawa.

 

Kathy Rawa, has had her service dog since 2009, turning in her cane for her
service dog Dorita.

 

"When I was a cane user, I lacked confidence, I had no self esteem, and I
was afraid to journey outside," says Rawa.

 

Now, this impaired vision awareness advocate and President of the National
Federation of the Blind in New Jersey, is trying to not only raise awareness
for guide dogs and the visually impaired, but also pass legislation that
will make life a little easier for guide dog users.

 

"Right now in the state of New Jersey, if a service animal is attacked, the
only thing we can do is call animal control," explains Rawa.

 

Called Dusty's law, this piece of legislation requires police to respond to
a reported attack on a guide dog team making it a criminal case and not a
civil case.

 

"People have to understand that their not just dogs, their special
functioning animals, who provide us a normal healthy life," says Rawa.

 

In Vineland, Debbie Schaser, founder of the Canine Hearing Companions Inc.,
has been helping the hearing impaired adjust to life with their dogs.

 

"A hearing dog will alert a person to certain sounds, and take them to that
sound," says Schaser.

 

Sounds such as door bells, fire alarms, and even a crying infant. Schaser
also trains medical alert dogs who can sense seizures, prior to their owners
having one.

 

"The dogs will go into a mothers room, before her child would have a
seizure, which is wonderful," claims Schaser.

 

On this day, as we celebrate these life saving canine's and the lives they
give back to their owners, service dog users like Rawa want the public to
know that these are just not dogs.

 

"We have to educate people into not only to look at them as being dogs, they
do serve as part of our bodies," says Rawa.

 

For more information on the National Federation of the Blind:
http://www.nfbnj.org/