Month: August 2022

Categories
Disability Rights International

Welcome Service Dogs; It’s the Law

Jody & Chief

Exclusion
Your dog can’t come in here.
You and your dog must leave immediately.

These are the words service dog owners frequently hear when seeking to enter hotels, restaurants, stores, and the like. And some dogs are excluded without words. This happens when drivers of buses and taxis refuse to stop after seeing a service dog with a passenger waiting for a ride.

So how frequently are service dogs excluded? The numbers are extraordinary. Access has been refused to three-quarters of American and British guide dog owners and half of Australian handlers and their dogs in the past two years.

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Exasperating civil rights violation

How can this be when the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 33 State laws, and civil rights laws in other countries make it unlawful to withhold the welcome mat? Service dogs must be allowed to accompany their handlers into any facility, or portion thereof, open to the public. It’s the law!

Exception

Removal of a service dog is permitted if the dog is out of the handler’s control, behaving badly, poses a public health and safety risk, or is not housebroken.

Excuses don’t hold water

Businesses are either ignoring the law or ignorant of what the law requires. But neither excuse condones comments like the following:

I’m allergic to dogs.
I don’t want my car to get dirty.
I thought the dog was a pet since he wasn’t wearing a vest.
You don’t look disabled.

Besides, ignorance of the law is no excuse. For an employee to say, “I didn’t know,” at best, shows poor training or, at worst, a reckless disregard for the well-being of those whose safety and security is dependent on their service dog.

Examine

Staff challenging the legitimacy of a service dog can legally only ask the handler two questions: (1) is the dog a service animal required because of a disability? and (2) what task has the dog been trained to perform? Staff cannot demand that the dog be registered, certified, or identified with a harness, ID card, or vest. Training documentation and a demonstration of tasks the dog performs cannot be required. Questions about the handler’s disability are off limits.

Exercise your right to enter

When service dogs are denied entry, handlers can take one or more of the following steps:

1. Explain how the dog’s entry is legally mandated. Consider sharing a one page summary of the ADA, State, or other pertinent law.

2. Ask to speak to a manager or owner if lower tier staff still refuse entry.

3. Consider calling the police if the law provides for criminal penalties and ask for a police report.

4. If feasible, use your cell phone to record the refusal.

5. Document the refusal by making contemporaneous notes of the words spoken and actions taken against you and your dog.

6. File a complaint with the appropriate State or federal enforcement agency, see https://beta.ada.gov/file-a-complaint/

7. Get a lawyer to bring a private civil action against the offending business or entity.

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Categories
Disability Rights

Respect Service Dogs

Jody & Chief

Are you among the 79 million American pet dog owners with reason to celebrate National Dog Day on August 26th? If not, you can celebrate service dogs by showing them respect. They are trained to perform individualized tasks for people with disabilities.

Most of us are familiar with a guide dogs role of helping people with visual impairments independently and safely navigate everyday obstacles. But there are four other categories. A medical response dog assists individuals with a medical disability. For example, a diabetic alert dog detects high or low levels of blood sugar in people with diabetes and alerts their owners to dangerous changes in blood glucose levels. A seizure response dog helps during or after a seizure.

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Then there are psychiatric assistance dogs serving people with mental disabilities like anxiety, autism, depression, and schizophrenia or disorders like bipolar, obsessive-compulsive, and post-traumatic stress. With training customized to their owner’s need, the dogs can help by waking them up from a night terror, guiding them to a safe space during an anxiety episode, giving medication reminders, standing between their owner and other people in claustrophobic situations, or fetching help for an owner immobilized by fear.

A hearing dog assists people who are deaf or hard of hearing by alerting their owner to sounds like doorbells, smoke alarms, telephone rings, alarm clocks, or someone calling the owner’s name. A mobility service dog helps wheelchair users and those with poor balance with tasks like retrieving dropped items, opening and closing doors, turning lights on and off, or pulling a wheelchair up a slope.

In order for service dog assistance to be effective, the public needs to respect their work. The dogs should not be fed, touched, talked to, or approached without the owner’s consent. As one guide dog owner said, “Distracting the dog is a safety risk, not just an inconvenience.” For example, one owner fell and injured herself when a woman made a grab for her dog’s lead just as she was stepping off a train. 

Sadly 71% of guide dog owners in the United Kingdom reported such distractions occurring on a daily basis and 24% said this happens weekly. On the flip side, 30% of the public admitted to distracting a guide dog while it was working. This disrespect needs to stop.

Even though emotional support dogs and therapy dogs do not require training customized to their owner’s disability and do not qualify as service dogs, they are also worthy of respect. Emotional support dogs provide comfort and companionship to individuals living with emotional and other mental health disabilities.  Therapy dogs are commonly found in hospitals and nursing homes and their task is simple: to comfort people other than their owners. For example, veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder are often comforted when visited by a therapy dog. And unlike service animals, the work of a therapy dog often involves touching, petting, and playing.

For discussion of the rights of service dog owners to take their dog into public places, see next week’s post “Welcome Service Dogs.”

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Categories
Humor

Sparkle with Laughter and Jokes

Tell a Joke

“Laughter is magic that dispenses clouds and creates sunshine in the soul.” ― Richelle E. Goodrich

 “A day without laughter is like living in darkness; you try to find your way around, but you can’t see clearly.” ― Emily Mitchell

“Always laugh when you can, it is cheap medicine.” ― Lord Byron

Just as well there’s a day dedicated to helping us laugh. National Tell A Joke Day on August 16 encourages us to celebrate by telling a joke, keeping the mood light, and enjoying a good laugh. After all, people have been telling jokes for thousands of years.

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But as Erma Bombeck said, “There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt.” As a result, when choosing what jokes to tell we should follow the golden rule and not be offensive or insensitive. So how do we avoid jokes that are crass, racist, religionist, sexist, homophobic, or ableist?

A safe place to start could be a corny joke kids often tell:

  • Why shouldn’t you write with a broken pencil?

Because it’s pointless.

  • Why can’t your nose be 12 inches long?

Because then it would be a foot

  • What did the ocean say to the shore?

Nothing… it just waved.

But if we start with kids play, the joke will more likely elicit a groan than laughter dispensing medicine.

So what about a malapropism, the unintentional humorous misuse or distortion of a word? Church bulletins are a great place to find such bloopers:

  • Potluck supper Sunday at 5:00 PM – prayer and medication to follow.
  • Carol is asking prayer for a good autopsy result.
  • Hear an excellent speaker and heave a healthy lunch.

And then there’s the humor in choosing correct words that are strung together poorly: 

  • The cost for attending the Fasting and Prayer Conference includes meals.
  • Ladies, don’t forget the rummage sale. It’s a good chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Bring your husbands.
  • Eight new choir robes are currently needed due to the addition of several new members and deterioration of several others.

So what about all those disability jokes? Do they distinguish between humor that denigrates and humor that enlightens?

  • I’m not saying short people are inferior, but I do look down on them.
  • I dated a girl with a lazy eye once, but she was seeing someone else on the side.
  • How do you end two deaf people arguing?

Switch off the light.

  • What test does a person with Down syndrome do well on?

A DNA test, they get a 47 out of 46.

Is disability humor off limits? Do people with disabilities need to get a thicker skin when cruel or tasteless jokes are made at our expense? Do we agree with Nicolas Steenhout that disability humor is part of disability culture? Perhaps the answer lies in understanding that jokes about people with disabilities are not funny, but jokes by people with disabilities can be.

To dig deeper, I highly recommend reading “Disability Humor, Insults, and Inclusive Practice” by Robin M. Smith and Mara Sapon-Shevin, December 12, 2012. State University of New York, Cortland. http://sites.cortland.edu/sasc/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2012/12/Disability-Humor-Final.pdf And to automatically receive weekly posts in your email inbox subscribe to my blog at https://angelamuirvanetten.com.

Categories
Vacations

Water Adventures

Jet ski

I’ll never forget the day mum helped me catch a wave as a teenager. As we stood in the ocean waiting for my ride on a handheld surf board, three waves piled on top of each other and the shallow water receded into the approaching triple-decker. There was no turning back. Three waves crashed me onto the sand, my board went flying, my bathing cap swished off, and I surfed underwater. My feet were the only evidence of my feat—they rode into shore facing their soles to the sun.

Although we laughed at the absurdity of the situation, I resolved to stay above water in the future. This decision has stuck with me

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throughout married life with Robert, a man who loves the water—swimming, snorkeling, diving, sailing, fishing, and boating. I only participated when I was on the water and not in it. Even so, Robert had his own share of excitement.

In the 1980s we crewed on the sailboat of my co-worker, David. Robert steered the rudder, I worked the ropes, and David unfurled the sails. But Robert couldn’t see what lay ahead, I couldn’t tie the ropes, and Robert abandoned the rudder to help me. As we headed dead center for a moored boat, David jumped in to avert a collision! And he never invited us to crew for him again.

In the 1990s, Robert courted three different water disasters.

His joyride on a Jet Ski turned into terror when he got lost on his way back to our lakeside camping ground. He tried a shortcut across the lake, but it was so cold and choppy that he went numb and his joints hurt from cutting through the waves. When he went back to the shoreline, the weeds clogged up the Jet Ski, twice. It took him three hours to find his way to our campsite.

When snorkeling on the Coral Coast of Viti Levu, Fiji, an electric eel engraved its teeth marks across Robert’s second and third fingers. Medical attention was needed. The good news was that the doctor on call was at the hotel; the bad news was that the doctor was in the bar having a few drinks. We reluctantly went with the doctor to his off-site clinic, but only because another staff member was the designated driver. Given the doctor’s inebriated state, Robert accepted a tetanus shot, but declined sutures.

Robert’s way of preparing himself for hip replacement surgery was to snorkel at John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park in Key Largo, Florida. But in addition to swimming among fish common to the reef, a school of barracudas surrounded him. Happily, he did not look like a menu item.

On Robert’s bucket-list trip to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, his dwarf body shape prevented him from managing a scuba-diving oxygen tank. Unwilling to give up, he safely descended about 12 feet donned in a glass diver helmet attached to an oxygen hose. I was content to view the fish and coral from a glass-bottom submarine.

This post includes scenes from the second book in my dwarfism memoir trilogy, “Pass Me Your Shoes: A Couple with Dwarfism Navigates Life’s Detours with Love and Faith.” Read more at https://angelamuirvanetten.com/pass-me-your-shoes/.

Categories
Disability Rights

Ask the Author

what who how why

What books are in your dwarfism memoir trilogy?

  • Dwarfs Don’t Live in Doll Houses

Discover how my first 25 years paved the way to independence and determination.

  • PASS ME YOUR SHOES: A Couple with Dwarfism Navigates Life’s Detours with Love and Faith

Find hope and humor in this complicated international marriage story.

  • ALWAYS AN ADVOCATE: Champions of Change for People with Dwarfism and Disabilities

See how advocacy impacts volunteerism, entertainment, and equal access.

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Why did you write this series?

My frustration with media that misses the mark in describing our dwarfism experience often leading to inspiration porn. I write to stir understanding not pity, advocacy not apathy, and hope not despair.

Who will appreciate this trilogy?

Nobody skates through life without some kind of hardship—abuse, divorce, financial, grief, health—so whether the hardships are the same or different, everyone can relate to positive messages that emerge from painful experiences.  

Where can I get more information?

Visit my website at https://angelamuirvanetten.com/books to see the description, editorial reviews, product details, and author biography.

How can I get a copy of your books?

Buy links to Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, and Books a Million are on my website at https://angelamuirvanetten.com/books/.

Where do I find media interviews about your books?

Go to the media page on my website, https://angelamuirvanetten.com/media/, for links to several podcasts and one written interview.

When do you do book signings and presentations?

Just email me at angela@angelamuirvanetten.com with a proposed time and place so we can schedule a virtual or in-person engagement. 

How do I get the book(s) I already bought autographed?

Email me your name and mailing address and I’ll send you a signed sticker to paste in your book.

What are you writing these days?

I’m no longer working on a book manuscript, but I do write a weekly blog post and the occasional article. See https://angelamuirvanetten.com/blog

Where can I follow you on social media?

What advice do you have for people who want to write a book?

Everyone has a story to tell, the question is whether you need 40 to 60 thousand words to tell it. Before launching into a book project, I recommend refining your writing with smaller pieces like articles and newsletters. Read other books similar to the one you want to write. Open yourself to reader feedback and professional editing. Once your book is written and edited, you’re only half way there. You still need a publisher. Decide whether to pursue traditional or independent publishing. Develop and implement a marketing plan. These steps can be even harder than writing because they are out of your control.

What questions do you have?

Write your question as a comment and I’ll answer in the reply.

For answers to more questions, read Ask the Author About ‘Always an Advocate.’ August 2, 2021. Angela Muir Van Etten blog post.https://angelamuirvanetten.com/ask-the-author-about-always-an-advocate/