Last night (waited
until approximately 10pm to avoid rude customers interfering with my service
dog; which happens on almost every outing to every location with my SD. I have
to admit; he is a beautiful 3 yr old German Shepherd) my service dog and I entered
our local Wal-Mart via the garden center.
Upon entering we were stopped by the 2 employees standing around the
doors and asked about my SD. I told them yes my dog was in fact SD as indicated
by his gear. They went on to inform me that they were having to “crack down” on
people bringing their pets into the store due to food and health certification.
I understand
this issue better than they could possibly understand. Fake SD are not only criminal (misdemeanor)
they often interfere with true SD’s which is also a criminal act (it would be
equal to someone messing with a person’s oxygen tank). Fake SD’s have been known to lunge, bite, and
fight with SD’s. This could cause a legitimate
SD to miss an alert for their handler, causing serious medical problems and
even death. I appreciate that Wal-Mart is “cracking down” on people bringing
their pets into the store.
However, what
concerned me enough to write a letter to Wal-Mart was these 2 employees lack of
knowledge about SD’s in general and the ADA but they were tasked with “cracking
down” on fake service dogs.
According to
the American Disability Act, “Service animals are defined as dogs that are
individually trained to do work or perform tasks for people with disabilities. Examples of such work or tasks include
guiding people who are blind, alerting people who are deaf, pulling a
wheelchair, alerting and protecting a person who is having a seizure, reminding
a person with mental illness to take prescribed medications, calming a person
with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) during an anxiety attack, or
performing other duties. Service animals are working animals/equal to medical
equipment, not pets. The work or task a dog has been trained
to provide must be directly related to the person’s disability. Dogs whose sole
function is to provide comfort or emotional support (ESA) do not qualify as service animals under the ADA.” (https://www.ada.gov/service_animals_2010.htm)
There are only 2 questions that a business owner/staff can
ask a handler (1) is the dog a service animal required because of a disability,
and (2) what work or task has the dog been trained to perform. Staff cannot ask
about the person’s disability, require medical documentation, require a special
identification card or training documentation for the dog, or ask that the dog
demonstrate its ability to perform the work or task.
Wal-Mart’s employees stated that they wished everyone carried
their paperwork, registration with them.
First, there is no legitimate certification or registry in the United
States for a SD. If anyone shows such
paperwork or id their SD is more than likely fake. 2nd asking for
proof of id, medical documentation, and certification/registry is not allowed
under the protections of the ADA.
The only thing required for a person to have a service dog in
the United States is a disability that a doctor has prescribed a service dog to
help mitigate their disability and a trained
service dog.
Also, your employees did not know the difference between a
Service Dog and an Emotional Support Animal (ESA). A SD is a dog (or miniature horse – only animals
legitimate under the ADA protections for SDs) that has been specially trained
to perform a task that mitigates/assists the person’s disability. An ESA is an untrained animal that is allowed
in most residential settings and to fly. They are not permitted public access
as SDs are and they are not protected in public access settings under the ADA.
If Wal-Mart is going to task employees with “cracking down”
on fake SDs, please make sure they are educated so that I am not stopped every
time I enter the store and asked illegal questions or asked to exhibit “fake”
proof.
As we have all seen in recent news stories (an ESA attacking
and biting a passengers face on a flight, an aggressive dog attacking and
killing a SD in a store) “fake” sds are an issue. These people just want to be able to take
their dogs with them everywhere they go and trust me as someone who adores
animals completely understands this. However, these dogs often have no training
and sometimes are not properly socialized and often interfere with a true
working dog. People with SDs rely on
their working dogs to be their lifeline and often save their lives for various
medical situations. If a “fake” SD interferes, disrupts or attacks a SD it is
the same as attacking, destroying, disrupting a person’s oxygen tank, wheel
chair, walker, etc. By taking a “fake” SD into non pet friendly environments it
also creates undue stress to legitimate SD handlers who are constantly stopped
and harassed about the legitimacy of their own SD.
One of my biggest pet peeves is people who create undue
hardships for others out of their own selfish needs. They think they aren’t hurting anyone but how
would they like to not be able to go about their daily business without being
stopped every place they go and asked about their legitimate medical needs? How
would they like to be judged and ridiculed because they are assumed to be “faking”
because so many others are?
People should stop and think before making comments such as, “man
I wish I could take my dog everywhere I go”. Saying this to a person with a
legitimate need for a SD is the same as saying, “man, I wish I were deaf/blind”,
“ I wish I had an oxygen tank”, “I wish I had a wheelchair”. SD handlers have serious difficulty
functioning without their SD. SDs undergo thousands of hours and years of
training specialized to mitigate their handlers disability. Fake SDs damage the
SD community. Distracted SDs could cause serious medical situations for their
handlers. Fake SDs can cause misinformation about SDs and the laws and rules
that govern them.
