Emotional Assistance Animals @ MindSay

In response to NosceTeIpsum's un-heartfelt regard towards the disabled who require service animals to assist them when they have to travel, I've created a list of different kinds of service animals and why such animals are needed.  Now, most of you out there are likely familiar with working animals who serve as seeing-eye dogs, but what many do not realize is that service animals provide assistance to other disabled people worldwide.  Here's what they do:

1.  Service Animals in Training:  You will most likely find these animals, usually dogs, being led around by normal people.  These people are training the animal to respond to certain situations, places, and things that they may encounter on a long trip.  They are not let loose in a passenger cabin and usually the transit company allowing these animals on board is working in conjunction with a charity program working toward providing more freedom and mobility for the disabled.

2.  Search and Rescue Dogs:  You will encounter these animals in almost every airport and they usually accompany security guards or police officers.  The search dogs are trained to assist in sniffing out illegal substances and bombs.  Rescue dogs are only brought on board when there has been a collison, accident, or other dangerous event where finding surviving passengers is difficult.  Pretty self explanatory, right?  However, you will rarely get a complaint from a passenger on a plane or train against the presence of these animals.

3.  Guide Dogs:  This is the correct term for a "seeing-eye" dog because they aren't always needed to assist the blind.  A guide dog is also used to help people with other disorders/disabilities where a person may easily get lost or hurt without the assistance of another person.  The guide dog will gently and patiently help the person stay out of traffic and protect them against anyone who might assualt or take advantage of them.

4.  Seizure Alert Dogs:  Some animals can be trained to recognize specific changes preceding an epileptic seizure in people.  These animals, usually dogs, can provide a signal that acts as a useful warning to their human companion.  Dogs may alert people by whining, licking the owner, and alerting others to their special companion’s impending seizure. This alerting behavior allows the owner to get to a safe place or in a safe position before the onset of the seizure.

5.  Anxiety Alert Dogs:  (also known as Emotional Assistance Animals)  These animals assist the mentally and emotionally disabled.  Beyond providing emotional support and comfort, the animal gently enables the disabled person to travel accompanied by someone when a human companion is not available.  Like a seizure alert dog, an anxiety alert dog alerts their companion to an impending panic attack and can distract a person from having an attack.  This is helpful for someone who doesn't want to take a drug to numb their anxiety or someone undergoing therapy to overcome a phobia.  The dog helps them take care of themselves and can even alert other people that the human needs assistance.

6.  Guard Dogs:  These animals do not often accompany a human being as much as they provide security for places where humans are not available to guard.  Occasionally a guard dog will accompany someone alone and is trained to provide protection as much as a weapon can, except the animal has intelligence to deal with a dangerous situation.  They are not usually allowed to accompany a traveler on a plane, however.

7.  Social Therapy Animals:  Social therapy animals provide emotional support in places such as elder care facilities and hospitals.  These animals do not have the same legal status as assistance/service animals and are not mentioned in the ADA.  Many visiting therapy dogs help physically stimulate people in nursing homes or assisted living facilities by playing ball, being brushed or pet, and going for walks. Although many therapy animals are dogs, any type of animal that is good natured can be used to provide these services.  Some animals, including horses, help in reaching people that were once thought unreachable.  

Social therapy and guard dogs are not certified to accompany travellers using public transport. 

Not everyone is sensitive or understanding about disabled travelers who may require assistance from an animal.  One of those insensitive people is NosceTeIpsum, who, I quote, wrote the following recently in her blog:

"Apparently you can take emotional assistance animals on flights now. Like, if you're a big fucking whiny crybaby who doesn't want to leave home without your fluffy rabbit, Fred. You can hold it, and pet it, and hold it, and pet it [in-flight].

What kind of stupid executive decision was that?

If you're too psycho to fly without holding onto something fluffy, you're too psycho to fly! Ride a bike and put fluffy in a front-pack, next to your heart!

Freaks!"

Individuals with this attitude fail to get their facts straight.  I believed, at first, that  NosceTeIpsum was confusing social therapy animals with emotional assistance animals.  The rule of allowing certain kinds of service animals into the cabin of a plane does not mean that it's advisable that all animals are going to be allowed on board.  Only those animals with certification from a doctor can be allowed.  These animals are trained not to be a nuisance but a helpful presence to those few who need them. 

Sure there are flight attendants who can provide assistance, but anyone who has worked for an airline knows that a human being can only do so much for one individual.  A flight attendant, even though equipped to handle only a few life/death situations, is not a nurse and is not qualified to be a counselor. 

People with anxiety disorders do and can have "working animals" to assist them in helping them get out of the house.  This is isn't some trumped up thing created for crybabies.  And to suggest that disabled indivduals with special emotional needs should stay home or take another mode of transport is like telling a cripple to try to cross a road without the aid of a wheel chair and when they can't, well, why don't they stay in bed at home?  It's attitudes like this that give the disabled yet another, very unnecessary, social stigma to overcome.  Over the last few years such "working animals" have become common but a lot of public places still will only allow "seeing eye dogs" but not animals who assist people who are disabled in other ways.

Mostly the negative attitude towards working animals comes from an idea that "animals are dirty" or will cause a hassle for people with allergies or other problems.  It's not that common place for service animals to be everywhere people go, but those animals that are working are rarely seen to cause any problems for other people.  But then there are those, who, even after being presented with facts, still hold on to their prejudice. 

Before you make fun of something, check the facts, please.  I'm one of those folks who has trouble traveling, whether it be on a plane or not, and it really bites when people don't understand why it's difficult for me to get around.  Saying something like "if you're too psycho to fly find another transport or stay away from me" really hurts.  I'm not a freak.  Disabled people aren't freaks.  And I don't sit around waiting for people to wait on me hand and foot because I've got a disorder.  We all deal with things in our own way and working animals provide a little unconditional assistance that some humans aren't humane enough to give to the disabled.  An animal will accept and help you regardless of your condition.  Human beings, on the other hand, will give you grief in every direction you turn if you appear or behave the slightest bit different than they do. 

Here's just a few sample links to info about panic/anxiety disorder and a few about what working animals do for people with such disorders:

Panic/Anxiety disorder
Tips on Overcoming panic disorder
The Effects of Animal-assisted Therapy
Guide to different kinds of service animals

No matter what the reason, someone like NosceTeIpsum will still take her attitude:

"I believe that ALL animals, whether they are pets, service animals, or emotional assistance animals, belong in the cargo area of the plane.

Flight attendants are already required to assist everyone from the morbidly obese to the blind... so everyone can have a safe and enjoyable flight.

So basically, they don't need their service animal in the cabin. Their dog, or their wheelchair (as the case may be) is delivered to them right outside the aircraft door at the entrance to the jet bridge.

Now THAT seems fair."

However, this is a moot point.  For if the service animal is in the cargo area, it can not be used by the person during the flight.  I even think it's stupid that we don't allow people in wheelchairs to sit in their wheelchair during the flight.  Why can't public transport companies accomidate people with disabilities more?  Every little bit helps, you know? 

I have seen the prejudice against people with service animals in action.  Even when presenting an establishment with certification from a doctor and putting the dog in a jacket that clearly states it is a working animal, there are places you are not allowed to go into with that animal.  And I'm talking places like malls, retail stores, grocery stores, etc.  It can severely limit the chances for an agoraphobic to go out in public.  Sure, it's easy to say that such people should stay indoors, but why not give them the chance to emerge back into society via the use of a dog trained to protect and guide them as part of their therapy?

An emotional assistance animal is only one kind of therapy available for some people with my anxiety disorder and I have considered getting one.  However, I don't have things as bad as others do.  I take precautions in anticipation of some conditions that may not be good for me.  Like I don't do well in crowds or crowded places because I had a very traumatic experience in a condition like that, and yet I don't want to be limited by my fear.  Occasionally I have to work up the courage to enjoy myself in a potentially crowded atmosphere, and I have, but it took some therapy and medication to get through that.  Facing that problem required assistance, and I lost many friends who didn't understand and who feared my problem.  The rejection by people I liked cost me some freedom, made it harder to function in society, and in the end just made me so angry I wasn't that afraid anymore to conquer my emotional obstacles. 

To limit anyone's chances of living a more mobile and sociable existence is not a healthy, nice thing to do.  Instead of freaking out and judging emotionally disabled people needing assistance as freaks, all I ask is try to see it from their point of view and realize that people from all walks of life, disabled or not, all have the right to request and use assistance, from animals or other human beings.  Because the real privilege normal folks have is never having to suffer an emotional attack, seizure, manic depressive episode or immobility.