If you have a disability and want to bring your helper parrot, monkey or snake with you in public, I’m afraid you’re out of luck.
That’s the first line of a guest post I wrote for The Bark Magazine’s blog about revisions made to the Department of Justice’s ADA regulations. The DOJ used to define
Dog Is My Co-Pilot
a service animal as “any guide dog, signal dog or other animal individually trained to provide assistance for the benefit of an individual with a disability.” Revised regulations signed by Attorney General Eric Holder last week define a service animal as “any dog that is individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of an individual with a disability.”
Notice the specific word “dog” in that sentence. Other species of animals, whether wild or domestic, trained or untrained, no longer qualify as service animals for the purposes of this new definition.
At risk of being labeled a species-ist, I confess I am happy to hear about the changes to the regulations. In my blog post for The Bark, I explained that when you travel everywhere with a dog like Hanni, you get an earful of stories about other service animals.
Helper parrots pecking at shoppers in stores; comfort pigs going crazy in airplanes; a therapeutic rat that quells anxiety in his owner but ends up causing anxiety to others instead.
Seeing Eye pioneers worked long and hard to open the doors and give our dogs public access. Opening ADA legislation to even more animals who may not truly be qualified could possibly ruin the good name our Seeing Eye pioneers have worked so hard to build over the years. My hope is that limiting the number of allowable species will stop erosion of the public’s trust in our well-behaved, helpful—and absolutely necessary—service animals.
The Bark posts blogs on its Facebook page and I’m bracing myself for the onslaught of comments. But hey, bring ‘em on. It’s worth it! The Bark has published a few of my pieces in their magazine before, and it’s a thrill to be connected with a magazine that also publishes stories by the likes of Ann Patchett and Augusten Burroughs. You can read my latest guest blog at The Bark’s site. Do me a favor, though. Be kind with your comments…!
I tried to comment over at your article at bark. GDB twittered about your article a couple of days ago. But I couldn’t find anywhere to actually submit the comment, they had save or preview options only. I tried twice and gave up. I was trying commenting that horses are allowed and that your article wasn’t quite correct. But I’m in the middle of catching up over at GDUI now and apparently horses are somewhere in between, not fully accepted but not fully prohibited.
I am of the opinion that a law pushing the behavior of the animal is much more important than the species. I’ve run into some terribly behaved “Service” dogs. Hopefully the language about comfort animals being prohibited will help to ease some of that.
Thanks for continuing to keep the general population educated about our lives, Beth. Last week, Chicago Times – this week Bark. Awesome.
Jenn-
Sorry you had trouble leaving a comment on the Bark blog, it *is* a bit confusing. When you want to publish your comment there, you hit the “save” button and voila! Your comment is published.
Let me know if you do find out how the new ADA revisions handle miniature horses. I’ve heard some of them (especially one I have read about named “Panda”) are doing excellent guide work. I guess it’s another example where some people selfishly stretching the definition have caused a backlash against others who truly qualify for ADA privileges.
I wonder if the DOJ wrestled at all with this one , I wonder if they tried to shoehorn the two words “miniature horses” in the new definition but were worried it would re-open the very can of worms they were trying to close shut?
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Loved this post, esp. the pecky parrot and stress-inducing rat, but what I have to comment on is your wonderful bumper-sticker-worthy picture captioned “Dog is my co-pilot”. Wonderful!
Oh, how I wish I were the first one to come up with that clever phrase, but I must confess: I borrowed my caption from The Bark. “Dog is my Co-Pilot” is the magazine’s tag line!
Thank you for your article. I agree with you completely. As a puppy raiser for GDB, I often see people atempting to abuse the ADA to get their pets into public places. It really does make it harder for the rest of us when a pet or handler’s poor behavior causes people to think badly about service dogs.
I love puppy raisers! You are such a very important part of preparing our dogs to do their job, and you do it all on a volunteer basis. VERY generous of your time and EXTREMELY generous of spirit. Thank you so much for your good work, so very much appreciated.
And hey, I appreciate your comment here, too. Thanks!
am of the opinion that a law pushing the behavior of the animal is much more important than the species.
Agree it would be cool if we could qualify service animals based on their behavior. Any idea how that sort of legislation might be written?
The ADA should never be narrowed in definition, even if you happen to like the particular definition. The ADA is needed because the non-disabled population does not think about people and situations that do not apply to them. You are not thinking about other disabled people who are limited because they cannot have a guide dog, or because they have needs for an animal other than as a guide. The exclusion of a service animal for someone with an autistic disorder, blind with other health problems, — the list can go on and on. While it is of course very valid point that guide dogs have earned a special place for their training and service, only a small portion of the disabled population can qualify for or use a guide dog. Other animals may provide service and support to these people, and changing the ADA in a way that limits the use of other animals, is, a long slippery slope.
Please note that the new definition welcomes the use of animals to help people with all sorts of disabilities — people who can’t hear, people who have autism, people who use wheelchairs can still use a service animal. What’s *new* about the regulations is that the animal used has to be a dog.
Beth,
I started to comment over at The Bark, but didn’t have time to finish and submit it.
Here! Here!
I spent a lot of time over several years dialoguing about, and exploring this issue. I started out believing as some of your commenters have, that it shouldn’t be about species, but more about behavior. I still believ it is about behavior, even though I agree hartily with the new definition!
Dogs should meet certain standards of behavior to be allowed in public accommodations. For 81 years, The Seeing Eye, and the schools that followed in the guide dog movement have set and met those standards.
Yes, there is the occasional dog and handler that misbehave and make it hard on all who come after them. But those incidents are not the rule, they are the exception.
Who doesn’t know a human that has behaved badly at one time or another?
Many service dog schools that have adopted high standards as well.
Then there are schools that are in it for the wrong reasons and give assistance dogs in general a bad name.
But, fundementally, dogs have been domesticated for thousands of years. Their bond with humans is the reason they make good service animals – they have worked with and for humans hearding livestock, pulling carts, guarding our homes, and, some would say, for thousands of years, guiding blind people.
We had 20 years of experience with the experiment of permitting many types of animals access under the definition of service animal. It didn’t work.
That’s what brought us to the decision by DOJ to redefine “Service animal.”
IN the comments I submitted as a private citizen, I suggested that individuals who currently use guide horses, and quadrapledgics that currently use monkies should be grandfathered in.
I celebrate this decision and those who fought long and hard to create this public policy!
Ooo, should have been more clear here. The parrots and pigs were not guiding people who are blind, they were assisting people with other disabilities. The pig I heard about kept a woman with Chrone’s disease calm, and if I remember correctly the parrot helped give confidence to someone with a mental health issue.
Lolly, thank you for this very thoughtful and well-written response. I know I promised you a blog post about how I manage to publish this blog without being able to see, and Your comment here reminds me to get around to doing that soon, because…you should keep a blog, too!
Beth,
I totally appreciate your point of view on this. My first reaction was dogs only? That hardly seems fair. I know of pygmy horses that act as seeing eye
guides. I think it’s good to guard against abuses of service animal privileges. But I hope someday as other animals are more rigorously trained and certified
we’ll discovered and accept more species into the fold.
Although in the new regulation it does specified that a service animal is a dog, there is a provision in which true mini horses are added:
*(i) Miniature horses. (A) A public entity shall make reasonable modifications in policies, practices, or procedures to permit the use of a miniature horse by an individual with a disability if the miniature horse has been individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of the individual with a disability…..*
This is good news being that the Amendment that was passed by former Pres. GW Bush did Not have this provision along with other provisions that this New Regulation has.
Nevertheless *other types of species trained or non-trained do Not qualify as a service animal.* This will exclude many of those individuals using Exotic animals or Farm animals. This was due to the misunderstanding of the law about service animals and the lack of training. (eg Emotional Support Animals are not trained for specific tasks they were just comfort animals). This has nothing to do with other types of invisible disabilities.
Having a snake in a store would actually be what the other part of the law always stated. Causing an undue change of the fundamental or direct threat of the business. (eg would be a mass hysterical behaviour from other clientele).
Not to mention that many of those species has never been domesticated to be amongst people in their habitat. Case in point although many people say ferrets are great for medical alert animals while this is true however from several breeders the understanding that these species need lots of down time. I believe though don’t have it in front of me a good 12 hours, henceforth wouldn’t be good as far as in public.
People say but they are now excluding monkeys. However it was because of the comments in which the organization specified that their monkeys are In Home Service Animals. Henceforth no need to add them into the mitts.
There is more specifics to this law:
Breed Restrictions: There is no breed restrictions based on stereotyping and fear. However this doesn’t stop the state from restricting based on actual history of said individual animal.
It is also quite clear in this New Regulation that they recognize individuals with disabilities are capable of training and have trained their own service animal. So no more misinformation going around that only professionals could trained such.
I also am glad that they changed the wording *minimum protection* to *Non Violent Protection* So this will make it quite clear about aggressive action. As there was one school that trained such dogs to constantly bark at intruders when coming too close to their partners. This gave a bad name for those of us with service animals or being involved with service animals.
So all in all the new regulation is pretty good. Of course it isn’t perfect but what Law is? At least we are moving in the right direction based on Disabilities Civil Rights, the way the law was always intended to be.
What a thoughtful, thorough, and well-researched response! Thank you so much for finding my blog post and taking the time to comment. Very helpful info and very much appreciated. And like i said to Lolly above, I wonder if you’ve considered starting a blog? You certainly have a wealth of information that blog readers would be interested in! —
Beth,
I think mr Holder made a mistake. He left out one important animal used by a number of quadriplegic users: Rhesus monkeys.
These animals give a level of independence to a quadriplegic that can be considerably cheaper than a live in care giver (being paid about $1200/month). The drawback is that they require extensive training (more so than dogs) and are inherently more expensive.
Now, I also happen to be blind and I don’t use a dog (I don’t have the funds to support the animal,etc). I’ve done pretty good for the last 20 years with a cane. If I can get employed, I might consider the guide dog option, but until then, its off the table.
Oh, Eric, I do know firsthand how difficult it can be to find a job when you have a disability and I do hope something good comes your way in that regard. In the meantime, have you approached any of the guide dog schools for financial help? I know some of them don’t charge anything at all, and others might be willing to “negotiate a deal” Example: the Seeing Eye asks for $150 for the first dog and $50 for subsequent dogs. When I went there for my first dog, Pandora, we weren’t doing very well financially so I asked to pay the school $5 a month for her and they were perfectly happy with that arrangement. When I got home my vet contacted pharmaceutical companies (or whatever you call them!)to see if they’d donate heartworm preventative and flea preventative to clients who use guide dogs, the companies were happy to donate. Dog food isn’t *that* expensive, I just hope that if you really want a guide dog you might consider these options…
As for the use of monkey’s, the comment from PWD above says they are now excluding monkeys because they are in-home service animals and so there was no need to include them in the list of animals people with disabilities are allowed to bring with them in public. I have not researched that bit of the revision on my own, though, so can’t verify.
This is very helpful and intriging information. So much great information that will helpful for those that are disabled.
I’m shocked that other disabled individuals would applaud changes to a law that was originally drafted to provide liberation to ALL disabled individuals.
It makes me heartsick to read people saying things like “Dogs only, yay! Screw everyone else.”
What an uncaring society we live in.
Screw the disabled vet that uses a helper monkey to eat and drink. Institutionalize him. Dogs only YAY YAY YAY!!!
Well what goes around comes around and one day your rights may be writtten off too with the flick of a pen. And ya know what, someone will say Yay! Screw ’em.
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