[nagdu] ADA definition of service animals

[melissa R green]

Last night our colorado nbc afilliate did a story on this exact issue.
I thought that they demonstrated a very balanced aproach to the issue.
It was very well done.
Blessings and best wishes,
Melissa R. Green and Pj
"We love because he first loved us."

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Julie J." <julielj at neb.rr.com>
To: "NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users" 
<nagdu at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Tuesday, December 31, 2013 3:06 PM
Subject: Re: [nagdu] ADA definition of service animals


The ADA defines a service dog as being individually trained to mitigate the
handlers disability.  So this means that:

1. the dog has to have had individualized specific training to do tasks or
perform work that directly offset a disability

2. the handler of the dog has to have a disability that qualifies under the
ADA, examples given are seeing, hearing, walking etc.  Some disabilities are
mental/emotional/chemical in nature.  A disability does not need to be of an
obvious physical nature.

3. the tasks the dog is trained to do have to coincide with the handlers
disability.  I am blind and have a guide dog.  If I were deaf a guide dog
wouldn't be considered to be a service dog for me because it isn't trained
to do anything that mitigates my hearing loss.   Of course if I was blind
and deaf a guide dog or a hearing dog or a combo trained dog would all be
able to mitigate some portion of my disability, so would be considered to be
service dog.

Make sense so far?

Generally when we talk about an emotional support dog it is in reference to
a dog that only gives comfort to it's handler by its presence.   That's not
a service dog because it hasn't been trained to do any specific task.
Emotional support dogs are allowed under the Fair Housing Act, but not the
ADA.

If the handler's mental impairment is at a level to be considered a
disability, meaning it has to interfere with daily life and the dog has been
individually trained to do something to assist the handler with managing his
disability, then that would be a service dog.  So let's say the handler has
PTSD and will experience a severe panic attack if he sees a person wearing
camouflage clothing.  His dog is trained to notice this type of clothing and
alert the handler and move him to a safe area out of sight of the triggering
clothing pattern.  The dog has been individually trained to do a specific
task.  The handler benefits directly from this disability related task.
This is a service dog.

Still make sense?

Now if the handler has some sort of disability and has a service dog trained
to provide assistance related to that disability, but the handler also
benefits from the emotional comfort the dog provides, it is still a service
dog.

Frequently news stories that talk about emotional support dogs do nothing
but increase confusion and misunderstandings of the laws.  If the person
just likes to have their dog along, that isn't a disability.  If the dog
isn't trained, it isn't a service dog.

Julie


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