Dear Mr. Restaurant Owner

Dear Sir:

 

There appears to be some confusion in the world of publicans about working dogs. Almost weekly I see a story about some pwd (person with a disability) who has been banned from a restaurant because he or she has a service dog. One would think that 20 years after the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act these incidents would be consigned to history, but based on the prevalence of ugly news stories this isn’t the case. 

 

Guides dogs were the first service animals, and for more than forty years they were the only ones. They offered a success story, one with real answers for their blind partners. Now, the training of dogs to assist people with other kinds of disabilities is common. Service dogs and animals are, in the strictest sense, animals trained specifically to help those with disabilities manage one or more functions of life that are otherwise impossible.     

 

In fact, that’s what disability is–a function disjunction, no more, no less. Forget the myths about disablement, the old fashioned idea that physical or mental impairments are symbolic, representing deeper deficiencies–disability is nothing more than an obstacle or series of obstacles. The Americans with Disabilities Act makes it clear that the definition is centered on the elements of life function: “The term “disability” means, with respect to an individual (A) a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities of such individual; (B) a record of such an impairment; or (C) being regarded as having such an impairment.”

 

Under the ADA major life activities include, “but are not limited to, caring for oneself, performing manual tasks, seeing, hearing, eating, sleeping, walking, standing, lifting, bending, speaking, breathing, learning, reading, concentrating, thinking, communicating, and working.”

 

Major bodily functions also means: “functions of the immune system, normal cell growth, digestive, bowel, bladder, neurological, brain, respiratory, circulatory, endocrine, and reproductive functions.”

 

The range of disability is broad, not because bureaucrats have expansive imaginations but because the ways of having a disability are almost uncountable. In turn, when thinking of service animals, I’m reminded of a slogan from our current digital age: “there’s a dog for that”. (Of course there are other kinds of service animals–monkeys, and miniature horses most notably.) 

 

Just as the public has trouble absorbing the scope and variety of disability, it also has difficulty understanding what a service animal is. 

 

Nowadays dogs are trained to help wheelchair users who are both paraplegic and quadriplegic–picking up objects, opening cupboards, handing money to cashiers, helping to balance their owners, just to name a few of their capacities. Dogs can be trained to detect the onset of seizures or help hearing impaired people detect audible signals. Some dogs help their diabetic owners by detecting changes in their blood sugar. And all of these skills reflect the amazing capacities of dogs and the pioneering vision of the guide dog movement.

 

But what exactly is a service animal? The most important thing for the public to understand is that it is not a pet. According to a pamphlet from the New York State Attorney General’s Office: “the ADA defines a service animal as any guide dog, signal dog, or other animal individually trained to provide assistance to an individual with a disability. If they meet this definition, animals are considered service animals under the ADA regardless of whether they have been licensed or certified by a state or local government.” 

 

A service animal doesn’t have to have a license. Nor does its owner have to carry official papers certifying the animal’s authenticity. The simplest way to tell if an animal is a working animal is by its professionalism.