THE PROBLEM WITH PET FRIENDLY BUSINESSES AS A GUIDE DOG HANDLER

Imagine being able to take Fido with you everywhere you go. To the mall, the movies or on a plane. This is the privilege granted to guide and service dogs and their handlers, and it needs to stay this way.

Sorry, Fido [and Fido’s owner]. But you need to stay home for this one. But keep reading: You do need to hear this.

It sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? You no longer have to worry about leaving your fur baby home, wondering if he’s peed on the floor, chewed up your shoes or worried about how little exercise he’s getting since you left him in his crate when you left the house. Why not take him with you on your afternoon errands? After all, the sign says “Pets Welcome.” No harm, right?

But there is harm. The privilege that allows guide and service dogs to enter public facilities is not there to give handlers an extra advantage or special treatment. It’s there to level the playing field. This is because of two factors: first, service dogs are not pets, and second, service dogs are trained to perform a service that mitigates the challenges of a disability.

When pets are allowed in public spaces where the community gathers, there are three things that can result, and they are what I call the Three D’s: danger, distract and detract. Let’s take a moment to go through each.

It Can Place the Team in Danger

Service dogs are highly trained to provide a particular service to their handler. My guide dog, Saint, spent four months of intensive training to learn how to guide a blind person. This meant learning to avoid obstacles, stop at elevation changes such as stairs, curbs, keep a straight orientation when crossing streets, and how to keep safe around moving traffic. It is a rigorous process, and only 50% of the puppies bred into the guide dog program graduate and are matched with a handler. It is not a job for the faint of heart; it is physically and mentally taxing. The responsibility they carry of ensuring their blind handler stays safe and out of danger is not for just any dog.

But it isn’t only the guide dog that gets trained. Handlers spend anywhere from a couple of weeks to a month learning to work with their guide dog. It takes upwards of a year to become a solid working team, and a big portion of their success is that both the dog and handler has a trust and respect for the other, particularly in situations that may be dangerous or distracting. That’s how they get through… together.

The world is rife with dangers for people who are blind. While we learn skills and techniques to keep us safe and independent, we are still living in a world that isn’t designed for disabled people and poses many challenges. Drivers of vehicles that don’t check for pedestrians can make crossing busy intersections risky. Encountering aggressive dogs who may be off-leash or not well-controlled pose safety risks for both the dog and handler. A guide dog helps to bear that weight. But it becomes increasingly difficult if the dog gets distracted.

It’s a Distraction

Service dogs may be highly trained, but they are still dogs and thus, will get distracted. They are expected to stay focused and avoid distraction while out in the community. But distractions are everywhere: people, food and other dogs being the most enticing of temptations.

If a working dog does get distracted, often, it takes only a simple verbal or light leash correction to get them back on track. But it can be more. And when a guide dog is distracted, it takes their focus off of their job and their surroundings; their focus transfers to how to get what they’ve just discovered–that piece of pizza on the ground, a pet from that nice lady making kissy noises, or a sniff of that cute girl dog. In this state, without the dog watching out for the safety of their handler, the team may walk straight into danger. Imagine what might happen if a guide dog gets distracted while crossing a busy road? They may veer into the traffic rather than keep a straight line across. I don’t have to imagine–I’ve experienced it. And it’s terrifying.

Guide dogs are inundated with possible distractions whenever they venture out of the house with their handler. And your pet is a perfect opportunity. *sniff sniff*

It Detracts From the Dog’s Purpose

But the greatest problem is a simple one of entitlement. If I get to take my dog with me wherever I go, why can’t you?

It’s simple: My dog is a mobility tool. He keeps me safe. He helps me navigate spaces that are difficult to do independently because of poor or inaccessible design. He levels the playing field, giving me access to equal opportunities that I may not have access to otherwise.

Your pet does not.

If pets are permitted to go places where only service dogs have the privilege, it detracts from the purpose of the service dog. Not only does it make the dog’s job that much harder, but it undermines the dog’s reason for being a service dog; to do its job, the dog needs to stay safe and focused so that it can provide the service it was trained to do. If any dog is allowed anywhere, then the privilege that these dogs have as working members of the community becomes meaningless.

I know it’s hard to watch someone walk into seemingly any establishment they wish with their dog at their side. But it isn’t always easy: almost every handler has experienced denial because of their service dog. Sometimes, this results in the staff learning about the rights of guide and service dogs, but too frequently, the handler is forced to go somewhere else because their legal right to enter a public facility was unjustly refused. And it happens more often than you think. This happens because people are unaware of the laws and rights surrounding guide and service animals, but also because someone has had a negative experience–a disturbance or aggression–by a pet, and to keep their businesses and customers safe, they feel that refusing all animals is the only option.

But in that moment, a disabled person has been denied the access that able-bodied people take for granted because of something that wasn’t their fault.

You might tell me that your dog is trained, and that he’d never do such a thing. He never even barks. To that I say: that’s wonderful! I’m so glad and thankful that you’ve taken the time and energy to train your dog properly. But that still does not give you the right to bring him with you when you go into the community because if you do, you’re undermining the tens of thousands of dollars it takes to train one service dog, and the work they do for one disabled person so that they can live their life with a little less challenge, and a lot more freedom.

GUEST POST — AN OPEN LETTER TO NEW DOG GUIDE USERS

I’m so excited to have my dear friend and fellow disability blogger, Anneliese, once more grace my blog with her wonderful, wordly presence. Anneliese is many things–many wonderful, wonderful things–but today, she brings her experience and wisdom as a two-time guide dog handler to the blog, and I’m so happy to share her perspective with you!

This post is part of a blog swap. Anneliese and I are each writing a post about advice we’d give to new guide dog handlers and publishing it on the other’s blog as a way to build community and share different perspectives. You can read my post on her blog and guess what… it’s another list!

Now, onto the post!


Dear future leash holders,

I hope you’re giddy. I could hardly keep my feet on the ground when I got the call. I hope you’re starry-eyed, that you see potential magic in every imagined future. Whether this has been a childhood dream come true, or a joyful consolation for a midlife complication, you’re at a very important threshold over which you won’t step alone. Your two feet will be joined by four paws, and so the journey begins.

It was 2009 when I began this journey, and that’s why I’m writing to you now. I’ve been around a few blocks with a couple of different dogs, and I’d like to share with you some wisdom I’ve tripped over along the way.

I thought about trying to organize this letter into something trendy like “Three Life Hacks for Guide Dog Users.” But I kept coming back to a single foundational principle: knowledge is power.

Scientia est Potentia

You’re going to receive several weeks of formal education. You’ll learn about laws and guidelines, and hear lessons presented as rules and stories meant to teach morals. They’re all very valuable, but they are just the beginning of your canine education. And, to be frank, not much of a beginning. There’s so much more to learn!

Food, grooming, discipline, fears, toys, social skills…you’ll learn about them all, and more. But it will merely be a vocabulary with which to frame more and more nuanced questions as your experiences and needs dictate. You must not stop learning. Not ever.

Your instructors will most likely tell you, quite honestly, that they can’t prepare you for every situation. But I doubt they’ll encourage you to do your own research beyond finding a local vet. They’ve been training dogs and users for a long time, so they think they’re pretty good at what they do.

They are, of course. But what they do isn’t what you do. They train dogs, and train users. You LIVE.

Living is different than teaching.

And so you must learn. You must learn, and keep learning. With every new dog you’ll live differently, and so you must continue to learn. Learn from other users, from blogs and books and podcasts. Learn from instructors and YouTube experts. Learn from your own instincts, and learn from your dog.

Knowledge is power. It’s the power to say “no,” the power to decide for yourself, the power to recover from mistakes and turn them into triumphs.

It takes power to say “no.”

No, others may not interfere with how you work your dog.

No, others may not take up your time and energy simply because you dared to bring a dog out in public.

No, that activity isn’t suitable for a dog guide, even if it is legal.

No, you don’t need to feel guilty for saying “no.” You know why these “no’s” are important, what the cost of ignoring them are, and how to execute them properly.

It takes power to decide.

In a world of hyper-availability we are inundated with advice and choices from every possible channel. Your school may provide you with a set of recommendations for how to find a vet, what food to give your dog, how often to groom, but doggy bodies are as varied as human bodies. Their minds and experiences, your environment and finances, and a hundred other variables all add up to this: what you need might change.

I’ve gone through half a dozen types of food, three vets, and a revolving door of treats and training techniques trying to meet my dogs’ needs. Between allergies, injuries, career and house changes, and the natural progression of a dog’s life, I’ve had to make an endless series of decisions I didn’t expect when my instructors gave me their formula for dog guide success.

I learned from each decision, but each decision required the will to deviate from that formula. I needed to know I was making the right decision. SO I learned, and then I chose. You can, and will, do the same. Your decisions will rest on the foundation of what you know, so build it strong.

Power of the Expert

Power is a hot topic these days. It seems people are obsessed with how much power they have in their personal lives, social lives, professional lives, in politics and finance. They’re even more obsessed with how much power they don’t have, and how much more power other people might have.

Whether your disability has been a life-long companion or a new acquisition, you’re likely very aware of the fact that people who can see seem to wield a great deal more social, economic, political, and personal power than you. This can be frustrating, limiting, and even dangerous at times. It’s probably one of the reasons you decided to ditch your cane in favor of a dog guide. I certainly preferred being “The girl with the German shepherd” to “the skinny white chick with the flimsy cane” walking around my college campus.

Social psychologists who study power have categorized it into several types: reverent (sometimes called referent), assigned, legitimate power, expert power, and so forth. What the instructors and trainers at your dog’s school have is expert power. Those with expert power have specialized knowledge about a particular subject that allows them to solve problems important to others.

But here’s the thing: those instructors got into their field of work because they are passionately dedicated to empowering you. They want to give you power. That’s why they train dogs, and give you lectures and coach you and offer support. And any rule or guideline they provide that seems constricting or less applicable to your particular situation is only given because you have less expertise than them.

The true realization of their dream, empowering blind people, would be for you to take the expertise they poured into you and multiply it so that the problematic guideline can be adapted to your unique lifestyle. Take the vocabulary they give you, enter it into Google and Amazon and Spotify and YouTube and other learning sources. And build your own expert power. These experts you learn from are giving you more than a well-trained dog and some basic education; they’re giving you the tools to learn more.

Recognizing this earlier in my dog-working career would have changed a lot about my dogs’ lifestyle, healthcare, and maybe even longevity. It would have saved me money, given me more networking and career advancement and educational opportunities. But I meekly submitted to the expert power around me, failing to realize its inspirational intent or potential.

I gained expert power out of desperation, but I won’t wait to be desperate again to follow any line of curiosity that comes my way.

Dear doggy-destined friend, remember you are at the beginning. Like a high school or college graduation, graduating with your dog guide is when real education begins.

May tails wag and treats flow freely in your future. May you stride with purpose and pleasure down busy streets and through crowded conferences. May you never walk alone again.

Love from Anneliese and Greta