On a normal Saturday in January, Fred and Sharon Adams were headed to volunteer for their local service dog training foundation, Pawsitive Action, where they had gotten their service dogs Beckette and Ollie. Fred, a former Air Force photographer and Korea veteran who’s legally blind, mentioned to his wife that he wasn’t able to teach his usual tracking and scent class because his chest was hurting. Sharon, who has Parkinson’s and has had three hand surgeries, had never heard her husband say he couldn’t teach a class.
Panic immediately set in, and they rushed to the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs Orlando Medical Center. After a tenacious fight to keep her husband in the hospital against normal EKG and blood work, Sharon convinced the VA Medical staff to hold Fred because she knew something was wrong.
On the morning of Fred’s heart attack, both of their English Black Lab service dogs were whining around Fred, something that the dogs never did. In a matter of 90 days, Fred suffered three heart attacks, and Sharon’s nightmares became reality. “I lost months of my life, it was so scary,” Sharon said.
September is National Service Dog Month, which is one of many rights protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Norma Ross, Pawsitive Action Foundation Executive and Training Director, runs the assistance dog foundation, where they breed, train, and provide service dogs for free to those with disabilities. When the help of donations, partners and their corporate sponsors runs out, a qualified person may purchase a service dog for roughly $15,000 as a two-year-old dog ready to take home or $7,500 for an eight-month-old puppy.
Training for Pawsitive Action’s service dogs begins when they are eight weeks old with basic conditioning and moves on to pass certifications, such as the Canine Good Citizen Test, or CGC, regulated by the American Kennel Club. Once the dog is around seven months old, Pawsitive Action allows the dog to choose their human and act as their “battle buddy,” Ross says about the service dogs. “The dog allows access to normal activities” for people with disabilities.
The ADA currently doesn’t regulate or have any specific certification process for service dogs. Walking around a public mall, you may have seen a dog inside and thought it was a service dog; however, many people choose to take advantage of the lack of ADA regulations for service animals.
“I think people are getting really tired of fake service dogs. They are so misbehaved, which gives a bad impression of how real service dogs behave,” Ross says. People with disabilities “get so few privileges that are just for them that other people take for granted, and this is the one thing that is theirs. It makes them feel special,” she says.
It’s worthy to note that currently only dogs are protected and defined as service animals, according to the ADA. Service animals are to be allowed into every public facility and private business unless the animal is not housebroken or is out of control from the commands of its owner.
The ADA National Network website, which offers guidance, training, and information about the ADA, recommends asking only these two questions to determine if a service animal is really a service animal: Is the animal required because of a disability, and what work or task has the animal been trained to perform? In a public facility, the person entering with a service animal must not be asked to define their disability or the extent of the disability. Also, a public facility is not allowed to ask the service animal owner for proof or performance of tasks by the animal under the ADA.
“The ADA is a great thing to have behind you. I don’t like going places by myself, especially in this day and age,” Sharon says of the regulations and the ability to have her service dog with her at all times.
The lives of people like Adams have drastically improved due to the ADA’s national regulations. Among some of the substantial regulations by the ADA are the Standards of Accessibility Design, which rule that all public facilities constructed after 1992 must be designed with accessibility for all people with disabilities. Employers, whether local/state or private entities, with 15 or more employees are not to discriminate against individuals with disabilities who are qualified for the position. Employers are required to reasonably accommodate the interview and job/environment; however, the employer may refuse to accommodate based on the accommodations being too difficult and costly.
The ADA also lists requirements for closed captions on all public service announcements and regulates the Telecommunications Relay Services, which allows all individuals with hearing or speaking disabilities to make telephone calls throughout all 50 states and U.S. territories. Alcohol and drug abuse are not protected under the ADA guidelines, and an employer may act upon just those known abuses accordingly.
The ADA turned 29 in July of this year. Founded in 1990, the act helps protect the rights of American people with disabilities to equal living among society. Employment opportunities, transportation, telecommunication, state/local government programs, as well as public accommodations and commercial facilities are among some of the few written laws that are protected within the ADA.
The Americans with Disabilities website, which offers information about the ADA, defines disability as “a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities of such individual, a record of such an impairment, or being regarded as having such an impairment.”
“I’m doing good, but it’s going to take six months until I’m totally healed, so you know I just have to be diligent with what I’m doing,” Fred says.
Visit Pawsitive Action’s website here: www.pawsitiveaction.org.
