[nagdu] A Great Blog Post to Share

Tue Oct 13 22:35:25 UTC 2015

Hi,

The link had an space in the word "service" that caused the error.

The article is below. 

Best Regards,

Michael Hingson

petsmatter  

American Animal Hospital Association

Oct

13

2015

Fraudulent service dogs harm people with disabilities

by Jen Reeder

Theresa Stern and her service dog, Wills.California resident Theresa Stern
knows first-hand the value of service dogs. The vice president of Outreach,
Admissions, and Alumni Services for the nonprofit Guide Dogs for the Blind
uses a guide dog named Wills, a yellow Labrador retriever who acts as her
eyes, increasing her independence by guiding her through daily life.  

"I travel much better using a guide dog," Stern says. "I'm more confident
[than when using a cane].and having a guide dog can also make you more
accessible to human interactions. I know if I'm in an airport, I only have
to wait a few seconds before someone says, 'What a beautiful dog,' and I can
say, 'Oh thank you! And where is Gate 7A?' or whatever. So that connection
is super important."

Wills is a service dog-not a pet. A service dog is trained to provide a
service to a person with a disability, such as vision impairment, hearing
loss, or mobility issues. A service dog can be trained to alert when its
handler is about to have a seizure, calm a veteran with post-traumatic
stress disorder during an anxiety attack, retrieve items for a handler in a
wheelchair, remind someone with mental illness to take his or her
medication, and many other skills. Under the Americans with Disabilities Act
(ADA) of 1990, service animals are permitted everywhere members of the
public are allowed to go, including restaurants, hotels, stores, movie
theaters, and other businesses.

That level of public access has led to a boom in people buying fake service
dog vests and pretending to have a disability, something that concerns Stern
professionally and personally. When fraudulent service dogs misbehave in
public places by urinating, growling or acting out of control, they upset
business owners and patrons and create prejudice against service dogs as a
whole.

"I get the idea that people love Fido so much, but impersonating a person
with a disability is just unethical," Stern says.

But it's incredibly easy to buy a fake service dog vest or fake ID cards
online for less than $50-a Google search of "buy service dog vests" yields
more than 1 million hits-and to lie about having a disability. To prevent
discrimination and protect the privacy of people with disabilities, the ADA
does not require service dog handlers to carry identification or documents
about their dogs, and business owners can only ask two questions: "Is the
dog a service animal required because of a disability?" and "What work or
task has the dog been trained to perform?"

"They can't ask for any license or certification or any of that kind of
stuff," Stern says. "So it makes it easy for people to sneak their pet dogs
into places where normally pets aren't allowed, or to avoid a pet deposit or
fee at a hotel."

Though business owners can ask any misbehaving service dog to be removed-the
ADA says handlers must remain in control at all times, and service dogs must
be housebroken-many business owners are wary of potential lawsuits or fines.
Instead, some argue to restrict access for service dogs, even legitimate
ones; in February 2015, a lawmaker even introduced a bill to the Arizona
House of Representatives that would have permitted restaurants to ban all
service dogs.

The bill was defeated, but it's evidence of an increasing backlash against
fraudulent service dogs.

"I love animals, we all do, but if you take them out and they're not used to
being out and they're not well-behaved in public, that type of thing can
start to diminish the legitimacy of a real service animal and then my
ability to get out with a disability," Stern says. "So that's a real
concern."

Fraudulent service dogs have also impacted Stern on a personal level. On a
bus in San Francisco, a dog growled and lunged at her guide dog and the
owner said, "Well, that's OK because this is my service dog." But Stern
countered that no legitimate service dog would act like that in public-they
have hundreds of hours (sometimes a year or more) of training to prevent
such behavior.

"And I've been noticing lately, [when] it's pretty obvious my dog is a guide
dog and I'm blind, I'm getting asked more, 'Is that really a service
animal?' At the airport the other day, three different airport employees
asked me, 'Is that a service animal?' because they're getting so many people
trying to sneak [dogs] onto airplanes without having to pay the pet fee,"
she says. "So it's definitely starting to become a problem."

Stern hopes pet owners will do the right thing and not try to cheat the
system, and that business owners will educate themselves about their rights
and be suspicious of potentially fraudulent service dogs when they act out.

"Most people I run into are super awesome and great," Stern says. "But it's
just a few [who] could ruin it for the rest of us, so we want to make sure
that doesn't happen."

Though freelance journalist Jen Reeder is a self-proclaimed "crazy dog lady"
who travels with her dog to pet-friendly hotels and asks if she can bring
him to parties, she is vexed when pet owners pretend to need a service dog.

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-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Dudley Hanks via
nagdu
Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2015 2:45 PM
To: NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users
<nagdu at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Dudley Hanks <dhanks at dudley-hanks.com>
Subject: [nagdu] A Great Blog Post to Share

Hi All:

AAHA's PetsMatter has published another great blog post.  This post focuses
on the detrimental impact that fraudulent service dogs have on people with
disabilities.

Please share with family, friends, and neighbors who may not realize how
critical this issue is, and let them know that they can become part of the
solution.

Check it out here:

<http://www.aaha.org/blog/petsmatter/post/2015/10/13/677862/Fraudulent-servi
ce-dogs-harm-people-with-disabilities.aspx>

Regards,
Dudley, with Michener

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