Educating the public about service dogs can be one of the most trying parts of being a service dog handler. Sometimes it's fun, when you meet someone nice who is interested in your dog's job. But with gatekeepers—people who can try to deny you access with your SD to a store or other public place—educating can be uncomfortable and downright confrontational.
Sunday is my big public access practice day with Kaline. We frequent most of the same places every Sunday. Yet today, at two of my favorite places, we were confronted by unfamiliar employees who were clearly very misinformed about laws regarding service dogs.
The first place was Penzey's, the spice shop. It is an excellent place to work on leave it, since there are so many interesting smells everywhere. We've also worked on maneuvering in its small spaces. Never before had we encountered a problem. One of the guys who works there is a huge sweetheart and just loves to watch Kaline practicing his skills.
As we walked in, a guy I didn't know asked if Kaline was a service dog. I am always tempted to say something snarky, given that Kaline now wears the BLD harness, several SD patches, and I have a SD leash patch across my chest on my over-the-shoulder leash at all times. Nonetheless, I always restrain myself and just reply, “Yes.” New Guy took in my answer, then bent to peer closely at Kaline. In general, this is a stupid and extremely rude thing to do to a dog. But Kaline doesn't care, so I will usually let it slide. Then I heard the man muttering, “Is he wearing ... ? Yes, he is. You're okay.”
I have friends who work their dogs “naked,” for various reasons. The right to work your dog without identifying gear is protected by federal law. So even though I never work my dogs naked, I like to educate those who seem to think vests or harnesses are required. I calmly told this man that according to law, Kaline does not have to wear anything while working. He shot back, “According to the law, he does.”
Challenge me on a point of SD law and I will not back down. I pulled up the Commonly Asked Questions from the US Department of Justice and pointed out the section stating that not all service dogs wear vests or harnesses. I even used an example of a seizure alert dog, which requires no special gear to be able to help its handler (whereas a guide dog is pretty useless without a guide harness). His face closed and he replied that he had to follow corporate policy as well as local law. I informed him that corporate policy doesn't trump federal law. (Local, California laws, are in line with federal law.) He just said, “Thank you,” which really meant, “I am not going to listen to you anymore. This conversation is over.” Guess who will be contacting Penzey's corporate tomorrow!
Our second confrontation came at Trader Joe's. We have not missed a TJ's Sunday in probably over a year, except for when I've been out of town. Kaline is always extra on top of his game in there, for some reason. We used to have a nice buddy who was on the staff there, and I helped him out when he was unsure of the business' rights when someone brings an ill-behaved dog inside, claiming it's a service dog. This is another place where we have literally never had an issue with any employee.
When we walked in, I saw a Golden Retriever SD from a local program, which was pretty exciting. I was in the middle of praising Kaline for looking away from the dog when an unfamiliar employee came up and asked if Kaline was a SD. Yes. (Duh.) Employee then leaned into Kaline's face and began baby-talking him. Keeping my voice calm while I seethed, I said, “Please don't talk to him. It distracts him from his work.”
“Do you have his papers?”
“There's no such thing as ‘papers.’ You can get illegitimate certification off scam internet sites, that's pretty much it. It's illegal to ask for such a thing.”
“No it's not. It's a new law that went into effect January 1.”
“If that were a new law, I would know about it. Would you like to see the ADA?”
He said no and walked away. I had a panic attack so bad I could hardly breathe. There was no place to go for full DPT so I knelt in front of the cheese and Kaline pressed himself hard into my chest until I was at least somewhat okay again.
So we went to find a supervisor. With the ADA business brief on my phone, scrolled to the point about the two questions and how requiring papers, certification, or ID is illegal, I informed the supervisor about what his employee had said. I asked for a copy of this supposed new law. Ever so shockingly, the supervisor had no idea what new law the guy was talking about. (Could it possibly be because it doesn't exist?) I asked him to please educate his employees on the two questions, and to remember that if the two questions are answered properly, and the dog is not disruptive, unhousebroken, or vicious, they cannot have the handler remove it.
It was not a fun morning.
However, education is extremely important to me. Part of my job as a SD handler, as I see it anyway, is to make things easier for any team coming behind me. When people show ID, or fake certification, they make it harder for the next handler, who will now be faced with a gatekeeper who's learned that teams should be carrying those items. Educating businesses on their rights and SD handler rights can be extremely shitty and uncomfortable. I hate having to do it. But in my opinion, if you cannot handle advocating for yourself as a SD handler in some way, whether it's verbally or simply by handing gatekeepers preprinted law cards, then you probably should not be using a SD. Some people are better at handling issues than others, and of course it takes practice. I'm still not that good at it (see panic attack). It's very, very necessary though.
So, we'll finally be printing up some law cards (I've never really felt the need, until today). Hopefully our crap morning today will lead to easier mornings for other SD handlers.
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
05 January 2014
24 June 2013
Another leg for Juno, and Kaline's first trip to a trial
Yesterday was Kaline's first Gotcha Day—I've had him a whole year, which is pretty unbelievable—and we went to a Rally trial for Juno with friends Mary, Marissa, and Kristin. I brought the big purple pop-up crate for Kaline to chill in, along with his breakfast and a Bento ball with an actual cookie in it. (Usually Kaline finds the Bento ball so fascinating on its own that I don't bother with the cookie.)
As you might have guessed, Kaline was absolutely not interested in the diversionary things and whined a lot in the crate. Juno was her usual excellent self. It was fantastic getting to meet Mary in real life, and both the dogs quite liked her also. Juno even favored her with a kiss, which is big coming from her. It was really nice to have a friend there that one dog could stay with while I did things with the other. And Mary took a bunch of fantastic photos of both dogs, but mostly the gorgeous Juno.
I tried to do things better than last time, given it was the same venue. We got a much better course, full of things that Juno is fairly good at, and sans broad jump. (YAY!) It was overcast, so I could warm Juno up in a figurative sense without really doing it in a literal sense. And for actual SD work, I had Kaline there, so Juno didn't have to worry about that.
Well, we again had jump issues, since on the first pass Juno decided to cut around the jump rather than go over it. Not knowing that you're not supposed to repeat a jump (I learn new things at every Rally trial, and always because I've done something incorrectly, haha), I got her back and had her take it properly. We lost ten points right there, but only one point on the entire rest of the course! So I was really happy with that. All four of the dogs who got ribbons for Advanced B got scores of 100, how insane! First through fourth was decided based on speed. An awesome toy poodle got second. All of us sitting together were commenting on how nice it is to see a little dog that's treated like an actual dog. All of us with dogs competing in Advanced (me, Kristin and Marissa) got legs! WOOHOO!!!
Once Juno was finished, I left her to hang out with Mary, got Kaline vested, and decided to do a circuit of the trial. I had had him out a few times already, just in our area, and had no issues from anyone regarding his prong collar. (Prong collars may not be worn at AKC trials—unless your dog is a SD and it's part of his working gear.) That changed toward the end of our circuit, the rest of which went pretty well. Kaline apparently has more trouble ignoring single dogs than ignoring an entire area full of dogs.
Anyway, we had just spotted our Doberman friend, Sue Korp, and her lovely bitch who has All The Obedience Titles. As we went to say hi and chat a bit, a woman with an Airedale came up to yell at me about Kaline's prong collar. I didn't even let her finish her little diatribe, continually cutting her off with, “He is a service dog. He is not competing. The prong collar is part of his normal working gear.” (I wasn't going to get into the nuances of SD vs. SDIT with her, considering that in California, it doesn't really matter.) I was getting pretty worked up but not too badly, because I had expected someone, at some point, to do exactly what she was doing and had prepared for it. Kaline was doing really well, standing in a block in front of me, between me and the yelling woman.
So I reached down to stroke him reassuringly and tell him he was a good boy. The Airedale woman gave him a disdainful look and said, “Can't be much of a good dog if he's in a prong.” That hurt, big time. I'm proud that I didn't cuss her out, or say something stupid, instead responding that my tools are my business, not hers. But you don't hear from a stranger that basically you have a terrible puppy and not feel totally like crap.
We immediately came back to the area with our friends, where Kaline parked himself on my lap/against my chest for most of the next half hour or so. He'd get off momentarily but then he'd be right back up. Such a good boy. And later, Sue came over to chat and say that the Airedale woman was over the top. She said that nationals for Rally are in Pomona this year—bad half of California, but still, West Coast! Maybe we'll figure out a way to go. It's in October, so we have time, and it'd be fun to see Sue's wonderful bitch strut her stuff (somehow at Rally I never end up finding time to go watch regular obedience).
During Rally Novice, a nice woman and her elderly mom came over to us to talk SDs—the mother is training her next mobility dog, a pretty smooth collie. She asked about Kaline's Petjoy harness vest, probably my favorite piece of gear besides our BLD, and I got to evangelize about all its wonderful qualities and how nice the company is to work with in general. It was such a nice, friendly, happy note to end on, rather than Airedale woman.
After crashing away the whole afternoon with the pups, Kaline and I accompanied Mom to Stanford for a quick outing (Nordstrom and Macy's near closing time). Kaline's fear of elevators is all gone and he's blocking properly again in them. He was really accurate with all the buttons, and is mostly using his nose now instead of his feet because he is SO DELIGHTFULLY TALL. TALL, I TELL YOU. He (mostly) ignored three other dogs at the outdoor cafe where I got some tea, and was just a lovely boy all around. Everyone upstairs at Macy's gathered around him to fawn over him and his beautiful silky ears. They were super nice and asked all the un-intrusive, fun questions.
Let's see, other highlights from my undocumented week. At our last session with the tdoc, Kaline was fast asleep until I started to talk about the access challenge we had in Pennsylvania. Then he woke up and laid his head in my lap for a while. Win. We've been practicing retrieves, and he's done pretty well with different materials including metal.
Last Thursday, Juno and I got to go with Sonja and Chief to the JCC in Palo Alto to talk to a class of preschoolers about service dogs. That was super fun!! Normally I'm very afraid of small children, but the teachers had prepared them extensively for the visit, and of course Sonja took the lead in talking to them and doing demos. They were really well behaved and just fascinated by the dogs. Chief demonstrated opening a cabinet and retrieving Sonja's medicine pouch, as well as going to a target with people around it (foundation for going to get help). Both dogs did regular retrieves, and then we showed the kids how the dogs can “undress” us. Then we let each kid put one of our gloves on their hand (their tiny hands were swimming in our gloves!) and one or the other of the dogs would come and tug it off! They were totally enchanted. I hope we get to do something like that again soon! I can't wait to take Kaline and see how he does. He will definitely have fun—Juno tolerates and is very quiet with children, but Kaline just loves them.
Juno's other big outing was going to the Giants game against the Padres (extra innings, of course) with me and Dad for Dad's birthday/Father's Day. Mom and I chipped in for really good tickets on the club level. Junebug was excellent, natch. Our usher was so proactive in looking out for her—anytime someone wandered near our row, she'd jump in and go, “Find another way in, there's a dog here.” We were right below the broadcast booths (TV and radio) and got to wave to the broadcasters during the seventh inning stretch. Lots of fun. Unfortunately we had to leave before the game ended; with a SD, my general policy is not to stay past the end of the 11th inning at Giants' games. (A's games, I can leave the scorebook with Dad and get my dog out for a pee break if I have to, so we can stay later.) The game went thirteen innings and we lost, but hey, a fun night anyhow!
We're planning to go to the Pride Parade in SF this weekend. Juno will be in charge of that, and then Kaline will be on-duty for Dad's birthday dinner that night.
As you might have guessed, Kaline was absolutely not interested in the diversionary things and whined a lot in the crate. Juno was her usual excellent self. It was fantastic getting to meet Mary in real life, and both the dogs quite liked her also. Juno even favored her with a kiss, which is big coming from her. It was really nice to have a friend there that one dog could stay with while I did things with the other. And Mary took a bunch of fantastic photos of both dogs, but mostly the gorgeous Juno.
I tried to do things better than last time, given it was the same venue. We got a much better course, full of things that Juno is fairly good at, and sans broad jump. (YAY!) It was overcast, so I could warm Juno up in a figurative sense without really doing it in a literal sense. And for actual SD work, I had Kaline there, so Juno didn't have to worry about that.
Well, we again had jump issues, since on the first pass Juno decided to cut around the jump rather than go over it. Not knowing that you're not supposed to repeat a jump (I learn new things at every Rally trial, and always because I've done something incorrectly, haha), I got her back and had her take it properly. We lost ten points right there, but only one point on the entire rest of the course! So I was really happy with that. All four of the dogs who got ribbons for Advanced B got scores of 100, how insane! First through fourth was decided based on speed. An awesome toy poodle got second. All of us sitting together were commenting on how nice it is to see a little dog that's treated like an actual dog. All of us with dogs competing in Advanced (me, Kristin and Marissa) got legs! WOOHOO!!!
Anyway, we had just spotted our Doberman friend, Sue Korp, and her lovely bitch who has All The Obedience Titles. As we went to say hi and chat a bit, a woman with an Airedale came up to yell at me about Kaline's prong collar. I didn't even let her finish her little diatribe, continually cutting her off with, “He is a service dog. He is not competing. The prong collar is part of his normal working gear.” (I wasn't going to get into the nuances of SD vs. SDIT with her, considering that in California, it doesn't really matter.) I was getting pretty worked up but not too badly, because I had expected someone, at some point, to do exactly what she was doing and had prepared for it. Kaline was doing really well, standing in a block in front of me, between me and the yelling woman.
So I reached down to stroke him reassuringly and tell him he was a good boy. The Airedale woman gave him a disdainful look and said, “Can't be much of a good dog if he's in a prong.” That hurt, big time. I'm proud that I didn't cuss her out, or say something stupid, instead responding that my tools are my business, not hers. But you don't hear from a stranger that basically you have a terrible puppy and not feel totally like crap.
We immediately came back to the area with our friends, where Kaline parked himself on my lap/against my chest for most of the next half hour or so. He'd get off momentarily but then he'd be right back up. Such a good boy. And later, Sue came over to chat and say that the Airedale woman was over the top. She said that nationals for Rally are in Pomona this year—bad half of California, but still, West Coast! Maybe we'll figure out a way to go. It's in October, so we have time, and it'd be fun to see Sue's wonderful bitch strut her stuff (somehow at Rally I never end up finding time to go watch regular obedience).
During Rally Novice, a nice woman and her elderly mom came over to us to talk SDs—the mother is training her next mobility dog, a pretty smooth collie. She asked about Kaline's Petjoy harness vest, probably my favorite piece of gear besides our BLD, and I got to evangelize about all its wonderful qualities and how nice the company is to work with in general. It was such a nice, friendly, happy note to end on, rather than Airedale woman.
After crashing away the whole afternoon with the pups, Kaline and I accompanied Mom to Stanford for a quick outing (Nordstrom and Macy's near closing time). Kaline's fear of elevators is all gone and he's blocking properly again in them. He was really accurate with all the buttons, and is mostly using his nose now instead of his feet because he is SO DELIGHTFULLY TALL. TALL, I TELL YOU. He (mostly) ignored three other dogs at the outdoor cafe where I got some tea, and was just a lovely boy all around. Everyone upstairs at Macy's gathered around him to fawn over him and his beautiful silky ears. They were super nice and asked all the un-intrusive, fun questions.
Let's see, other highlights from my undocumented week. At our last session with the tdoc, Kaline was fast asleep until I started to talk about the access challenge we had in Pennsylvania. Then he woke up and laid his head in my lap for a while. Win. We've been practicing retrieves, and he's done pretty well with different materials including metal.
Last Thursday, Juno and I got to go with Sonja and Chief to the JCC in Palo Alto to talk to a class of preschoolers about service dogs. That was super fun!! Normally I'm very afraid of small children, but the teachers had prepared them extensively for the visit, and of course Sonja took the lead in talking to them and doing demos. They were really well behaved and just fascinated by the dogs. Chief demonstrated opening a cabinet and retrieving Sonja's medicine pouch, as well as going to a target with people around it (foundation for going to get help). Both dogs did regular retrieves, and then we showed the kids how the dogs can “undress” us. Then we let each kid put one of our gloves on their hand (their tiny hands were swimming in our gloves!) and one or the other of the dogs would come and tug it off! They were totally enchanted. I hope we get to do something like that again soon! I can't wait to take Kaline and see how he does. He will definitely have fun—Juno tolerates and is very quiet with children, but Kaline just loves them.
Juno's other big outing was going to the Giants game against the Padres (extra innings, of course) with me and Dad for Dad's birthday/Father's Day. Mom and I chipped in for really good tickets on the club level. Junebug was excellent, natch. Our usher was so proactive in looking out for her—anytime someone wandered near our row, she'd jump in and go, “Find another way in, there's a dog here.” We were right below the broadcast booths (TV and radio) and got to wave to the broadcasters during the seventh inning stretch. Lots of fun. Unfortunately we had to leave before the game ended; with a SD, my general policy is not to stay past the end of the 11th inning at Giants' games. (A's games, I can leave the scorebook with Dad and get my dog out for a pee break if I have to, so we can stay later.) The game went thirteen innings and we lost, but hey, a fun night anyhow!
We're planning to go to the Pride Parade in SF this weekend. Juno will be in charge of that, and then Kaline will be on-duty for Dad's birthday dinner that night.
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