Service dogs, how to get your dog 'officially' certified.

Post Reply New Topic

Consider yourself sued.

56 minutes, Gary, dear.

Posting Specifications

* Posts which disrupt the page format may be edited or deleted by the Moderators.
Merle
____________________

Ah love! could you and I with Him conspire To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire, Would not we shatter it to bits�and then Re-mold it nearer to the heart's desire!
- Omar Khayyam

Last edited by sinsboldly on 12 Feb 2009, 11:23 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Why aren't large pictures edited in other threads?

My Librarian-fu says:

The Americans with Disabilities Act defines a service animal as any animal individually trained to help a person with a disability. Full stop. There are certification programs in the US, but it's not required to get the animal certifed, and business-owners and whatever public places may not demand you show any special tags or anything about the dog, even if your state has a state certification program. They are not allowed to demand you show proof that you have a disability either, and they are not allowed to demand that you tell them what your disability is. They are pretty much stuck with asking "Is that a service dog?" and taking your word for it.

They don't have to serve you or admit your service animal if it's a disruptive animal, though. It needs to be silent, stay at heel, lie down when you sit, not lie down in doorways or otherwise get in the way, and not solicit attention from other people when 'on duty' in public. It also needs to be clean.

The dog doesn't have to wear special tags or anything at all, but in the practical, get the dog a yellow vest and have 'Service Dog' embroidered on it to avoid the questioning. Then you're done, so long as the dog behaves very well in public.

thanks for that yes, I thought there was a basic one size fits all thing for service dogs. I think there is something similar in Australia.

I don't actually want to take the dogs around inside buildings etc like blind people do, it's mainly that I had the council inspectors turn up unannounced here yesterday because my psycho neighbours tried to get them to declare a small area of long grass along our common boundary a fire hazard (ie demand i cut it). Fortunately good sense has prevailed after I rang the council to explain that it was a vexatious complaint by neighbours who are disputing the boundary and that it would be unwise of the council to allow themselves to be used as a weapon in this matter.... and also it's a fairly spurious claim. and to think i moved to a small acreage to get away from psycho neighbours!

How does that involve dogs? well the council officer noticed that I had dogs and demanded to know if they were registered!. They aren't as I don't see much point in it, since I've had them microchipped and I like to know where they are most of the time. However, he does have a legal point against me there, so when I checked the council website I found that registration is free for service dogs. Hence my inquiry.

I was recently at a convention up in Reno and there were dozens of people with various types of assistance dogs and two caught my eye in that the owners did not seems to be disabled so I asked what their dogs did and sure enough both were owned by autistic people who used them primarily for navigational purposes in large crowds like you find at conventions. It was a brilliant solution to a common problem some of us face. By the way the hotel/casino now has a dog friendly policy throughout the facility.

Here's a question: is it possible to get a cat approved as a service animal? (For purposes of him being allowed into living situations which might otherwise ban pets. He is a housecat who never goes anywhere outside.) He is adopted from a shelter and not specifically trained to do anything--in fact, he's very independent and mostly untrainable. However, he provides much comfort and social interaction to his two "parents," both of us having AS and severe anxiety issues. We can get doctors who will write letters for this. Would it be at all possible for him to qualify as a service animal? We'll be moving to a new city in six months, and I worry this may be an issue. Hopefully we can find acceptable accommodations that allow pets anyway, but I'd like to know a bit more about the process for the worst-case scenario.

yes it is, i have a friend whose cat predicts seizures and is thusly allowed in a no-pet rental agreement

Just as an aside there are several people in my hometown who train various types of assistance dogs and two of the women are autistic (one is also partially blind) and they make a fairly good living by doing this so it is something that some people who enjoy working with animals might like to consider for a self employment opportunity.

Anyway after I have been appropriately scolded here is a greatly reduced image of my dog Ellie

and she is already way smarter than Lassie.

aw, she looks much better that size. Is that coat length normal for that breed, I thought they were mostly a shorter haired breed of dog.

It's interesting that you mentioned dog training as a career move for aspies -while I was doing some internet research on service dogs today there seems to be a lot of call for puppy and occasional adult dog sitting for guide dogs for the blind. I think it's unpaid but it could lead to other things I spose. It might be nice for people who only want a dog for a while, I imagine they pay for the food and whatever else it requires. I don't have adequate fences for dog minding though.

You could try calling the people who train the Seeing Eye Dogs if you can use the phone, but I'm sure they'd be on the 'net [so you can e-mail them]; they might know. I know it's a big thing now here in Oz, giving trained dogs to children with autism, and it's supposed to help in regards to social and emotional development.

They do it to adults too; it can help with getting people with an ASD out of bed as they have someone to look after (the dogs are trained to ask for assistance to be let out), and they can also get between strangers and the person with an ASD so as to ward off uncomfortable interaction.

yeah I rang the guide dogs for the blind and another organisation K9, but they both have very convoluted procedures because they train their own dogs for specific disabilities, and didn't seem to know of a plain or simple type of declaration. Autism service dogs uses are a lot vaguer and more individual than blind guide dogs.

Well my interest is mainly for the purposes of filling in this council dog registration form so I'm just going to write 'service' dog on the form and see if they query it.

That's an Australian Shepherd, a breed that did not originate in Australia, but in the US. Two conflicting stories about the name, one that they were associated with Basque sheepherders (people) who'd immigrated to the US from Australia, and the second that they were first seen herding imported Australian sheep off ships in California. I expect in Australia they call the breed by another name.

You're thinking of the Australian Cattle Dog, otherwise known as the Queensland Cattle Dog, Queensland Heeler, or red or blue heeler. Really Australian, and with a merle coat color like garyww's dog has. Not all Australian Shepherds do.

mmm interesting, yeah I thought it was a 'blue heeler' which is what dogs of that size, appearance and colouring are largely known as here. I hadn't heard of the "Australian Shepherd".

How do you come to know so much about all things dogly EK? special interest? profession?