Service Poodle's Dog Blog

A Day In the Service Dog / Advocate Life . . .

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 20:39:00 +0000

It's late Friday morning and we're rushing to Joanne's eye exam. She got to bed last night a bit late and overslept and we heard this morning that we're due for 6-10" of snow which will make our weekend plans to camp far less appealing -- so she's a bit distracted and tense and a lot hurried.

We rush into the building. She doesn't do the okay-Maeve-you're-going-to-work-now ritual of having me sit before we go in and again as soon as we get in. I figure this means I'm okay to socialize. The doctor comes out the moment we get into the waiting room and we notice each other right away. I'm sure he wants to meet me so I head for him. Joanne is not on the same page. She notices that he appears to be descended from a ethnic group that may not be in favor of service dogs and she interprets the look on his face to be disapproving. I disagree. We have a taut leash moment. Within moments he's not only asking about me, but also about details of Joanne's disability. She's not happy.

It turns out he's not anti-service dog, just a little inexperienced. I back off and the eye exam proceeds with me lying on the floor next to the chair he's put Joanne in. He keeps looking at me and me at him, but it's clear Joanne's not in the mood for poodle public relations work, so I stay put. During the exam it comes out that he is close to someone with the same diagnosis as Joanne and he's interested in how I help her. So there, Joanne -- another instance where I read a human better than you. I stay on my best behavior just to keep Joanne from becoming agitated. I continue my perfectly behaved service dog routine as she looks at frames. "Down please. . . . Follow. . . . Down please . . . Follow . . ." It's repetitive and annoying. I can't do anything but I don't have time to fall asleep. While she orders her glasses I get a little cat nap.

On to Costco's. I do a lot of poodle public relations work every time we go there and it's one of the places that gets a Two Paws Up designation on my Business Honor Roll. We get lots of smiles and I get lots of compliments. When I'm good (and I was) I get to meet the people who ask about me while Joanne talks to them about service dogs and emotional support animals. I'm in the groove now -- lying under a table of pants while Joanne tries to find her size, lying down and looking at Joanne for permission before I greet an admirer, following her finger as she moves me from one side of the shopping cart to another, and lying at her feet in the checkout line. On the way out she succumbs to the urge for a hot dog. I follow her politely as she dispenses her fountain drink and pumps mustard and relish onto her hot dog while balancing her purchases. At the table I instantly go "under and down" and get a cookie to eat while I wait. I charm children and their mothers with my good behavior and cute hairstyle. Joanne lets me meet one of the little girls I love. Life is good!

In the car Joanne tries to figure out where we're going to stay during the Halloween snowstorm. She decides we'll have to be profligate and stay in a decent hotel instead of a nice but blustery campground. She mutters something about Murphy's Law and makes a reservation for three nights that will cost as much as three weeks of camping. We are at a pet store, replacing my lost Frisbee, when she gets a call from Freightliner. They've got the plates ready for the new Maevemobile. This is good news, but reminds her that if we had the Maevemobile we could be comfy and warm for the weekend in it rather than spending the money on a hotel. She sighs and we head off in our minivan.

Freightliner is a very cool place. They love dogs and this was bring-your-dog-to-work day. You'd think they'd have a bunch of macho dogs. The ones we met were toy-sized dogs. I felt BIG!

At the hotel, I am on my best behavior. There's a line in the lobby and I lie down and people watch while we wait. Joanne gets nice comments about me from the other customers. We get to the counter and are told, "I'm sorry, you can't have a dog in here." Joanne picked this hotel, rather than a cheap chain motel, so she could relax and not get depressed. She really wasn't in the mood to have to educate the staff, but she took a deep breath and calmly explained the law to him. Then we got to our room and it looked like the scene of a poltergeist's Halloween party. The mattresses were standing up on their side and the furniture was in disarray. The next room they tried for us was much the same. We ended up in an "upgraded" room that didn't have the two beds Joanne prefers. I could tell Joanne was struggling to keep her mood stable so I was extra good as we carried our stuff from the car to the room. Finally I was off duty and got to eat, drink, and play with a new toy.

In the morning we went out briefly so I could have a pit stop and then we went to the breakfast room. Most of the people there really liked the idea of my being there and one couple had lots of questions for Joanne. They were very polite and didn't really say much until Joanne told them she wouldn't mind answering questions. She spent a lot of time with them. We had walked through the lobby on the way to breakfast, but I guess the lady behind the counter didn't see me. When we were going back to our room she told us nicely that pets weren't allowed. Joanne stopped to talk to her about service dogs too. Then it was poodle fun time!

We drove to one of our favorite play spots in Eastern Connecticut. It has woods, a hayfield, and a river. I jumped and ran and had a great time. This is especially fun because it's both work and play. Watching me move like this always improves Joanne's mood and I love it.

Next we were off to the grocery store. It was mobbed with people stocking up before the storm hit. There were so many people admiring me and asking about me. We got to educate a lot of the customers and got the satisfaction of seeing that the staff at Stop and Shop were PERFECTLY behaved towards us. It turns out they have a blind customer who uses a service dog and they've all learned appropriate etiquette as a result. Another Stop and Shop goes on my honor roll!

Joanne wanted to go to her favorite restaurant for an early lunch before we became snowbound. We sat at the bar so Joanne could talk to other people. She had a nice, relaxed conversation with another patron about service dogs. The staff are always wonderful here and they really like us. I, of course, was perfect. I'm always at my best in restaurants.

What a nice way to end a busy 24 hours!

Why Professional Training or Certification of Service Dogs Should not be Required under ADA

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 15:01:00 +0000

Note from Maeve: Legal stuff is just ridiculous human nonsense, and I can't be bothered to think much about it, so I'm letting Joanne write this blog post. Take is away Joanne!

Here's what the Department of Justice (which enforces the ADA) recently published on this subject: http://www.servicepoodle.com/useful-links-1/ada-and-certification-of-service-dogs

Below are Joanne's comments:

1. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a civil rights law intended to give our society a shove towards inclusion of the disabled. It was not intended to cater to the preferences of the non-disabled public, of people who make money providing goods or services to the disabled, or of businesses and state/local government, but instead to challenge them to change their physical premises and change their behavior and practices in every way that is reasonable. It also gives persons with disabilities wide discretion in what assistive measures they will use and how they will use them. There is no requirement, for example, that legally blind people use a cane with a white tip in order that businesses will be able to distinguish them from people who just need glasses and therefore are not disabled. One could demand to use the chair lift on a bus even if seated in a homemade wheelchair. There are no significant restrictions on what walkers, oxygen machines, etc., must do, look like, or be in order to be covered under the ADA. A service dog is the equivalent of an assistive device under the ADA. Consistent with this, the Department of Justice has established minimal requirements for service dogs: they must be trained to do something specific to the handler's disability, they must be housebroken, they must not menace people, and they must be or be brought back quickly under the handler's control.

In the 60's business owners complained they would lose business, have fights break out, etc., if they were forced to allow blacks into their establishment and provide services to them exactly where and how they provided services to others. Customers often preferred that black people not sit next to them or use the same bathroom for fear of infection. Some were willing to accept light-skinned blacks dressed and acting in conservative ways, but felt some young dark black men with afros were an obvious physical danger to whites. None of that was relevant, in a legal sense, after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The objectons to allowing people served by service dogs free and easy public access are quite similar. The misguided predjudices and preferences of the majority and of businesses and governments are the reason civil rights laws (including the ADA) were and are necessary.

2. Certification and/or professional training are not needed to protect the public, businesses, or state/local governments from misbehaving dogs. First, let's admit the truth here. Dogs have bad days. Dogs get sick. Some people spoil and/or mistreat and/or mishandle their service dogs. No dog, regardless of the amount of professional training, regardless of what tests it has passed, carries any guarantee of good behavior at all times and in all places. Guide dogs for the blind from fabulous, well-known training programs have been known to misbehave in public. Things go wrong and sometimes the dog needs to be removed. The law provides for this. According to the U.S. Department of Justice's ADA Business Brief on service dogs, the disabled handler may be asked to remove his/her dog if: "(1) the animal is out of control and the animal's owner does not take effective action to control it (for example, a dog that barks repeatedly during a movie) or (2) the animal poses a direct threat to the health or safety of others." This allows a business to get rid of ANY dog:-- professionally trained, certified, or otherwise -- when it truly presents a problem that is not reasonable for the business to tolerate.

3. The danger of the fake service dog is a canard. Not allowing dogs in public places is not a public health issue. If it were, even service dogs would not be allowed. Instead, they are expressly allowed in business that sell or prepare food and in hospitals. The Center for Disease Control had this to say about service dogs in hospitals; "No evidence suggests that animals pose a more significant risk of transmitting infection than people; therefore, service animals should not be excluded...." A preschool-aged child is a far greater threat to one's health than is a dog.

Yes, it is possible for someone to "fake" a service dog. It is also possible that someone who envies the advantages given wheelchair users could pretend to be disabled in order to obtain special treatment, but one cannot ask for proof that a person requires a wheelchair. People cheat on their taxes too. However, most dogs are not capable of dealing with the stress of public access; this is the most common reason dogs are released from professional service dog training programs. The crime of "faking" a service dog comes with its own penalty -- a misbehaving dog that makes the cheat's time in public uncomfortable and may require him to remove it from the premises. At any rate, it is not consistent with the purpose of the ADA to limit the options of a disabled person because of the dishonesty of some non-disabled persons.

4) Service dog training is expensive and people with disabilities tend to have significantly fewer financial resources. Producing service dogs is an expensive proposition. There is a book on the current NY Times bestseller list, Until Tuesday, about a wonderful, professionally trained service dog from a great training program in CT. It reveals the cost of that dog: $25,000. That's nearly three years of gross income for more than a couple of people in my support group. Other training programs can cost less, but the cheapest alternative for a fully trained service dog I've encountered is $10K. It's not that these programs are cheating the disabled. It is incredibly labor intensive to produce such a dog. However, if one is able to do one's own training a service dog can be had for much less. My dog, Maeve, has required only two hours of professional training at a cost of $90. I spent most of my money on a well-bred, healthy puppy with 10 generations of healthy sires and dams and great temperament: $1,800. Did I get lucky and did I work hard? Yes. I might well have failed to produce a good service dog, but it was my right to try.

5) Training a dog is therapeutic.Ask my therapist: training Maeve did wonders for my mental health. Even if mine weren't a psychiatric disability, I would have gotten a great sense of accomplishment and pride in producing a well-behaved service dog. There are few disabled people who wouldn't benefit from a little more sense of accomplishment and pride.

6) A self-trained dog is useful more quickly and will serve longer. It is common in service dog programs that the dog is not matched with its person until it is nearly two years old. Maeve is currently three months shy of her second birthday. She's been helping me and accompanying me everywhere for over a year. I wouldn't give that year back for the world. Remember too that a dog can be helpful long before it is fully trained and even before it is ready for public access.

7) Self-training is a big challenge and shouldn't be made harder by bureaucratic devices like standardized tests or certification requirements. There are many things a service dog should ideally do that are not absolutely required by a particular disabled person. For example, Maeve often loses her mind when a squirrel runs by and will pull on the leash with all her considerable might. If she were serving someone frail or unsteady that would be a deal breaker. However, I'm physically healthy and strong. I can live with that failing. Maeve doesn't know how to heel. I don't need that command. She knows "follow" which puts her walking just behind me and "go" which tells her to lead. Maeve is trained to engage the public -- something strongly discouraged by most trainers and handlers, but something I need her to do. It is not consistent with the intention of the ADA to require me to train her to do unnecessary things and/or to avoid training her to do what I need her to do just so she can pass a test.

8) There is no right under the ADA for public access by a service dog in training. The only way to train a dog to behave properly in a restaurant or grocery is to work with it in that environment. You can prepare him/her ahead of time by practicing at your dinner table, but that isn't the same as having waiters scurrying around, a carpet sweeper at the next table, a rattling dessert table wheeled by, and screaming children playing under the next table. If a dog is not a service dog until he passes a comprehensive behavior test and therefore can't practice in real environments, self-training could become very difficult.. The current legal situation requires that the dog be well-trained and well-socialized enough that he is under the control of his handler or quickly brought under control after a lapse, that he/she will not menace people, and that he/she will not eliminate indoors -- no more. If the dog eats french fries dropped under the table by a previous diner or disrupts the handler's meal by fidgeting and whining, or is too stressed to continue long enough for the handler to eat, that's the handler's business. Note: there are some states that extend the public access right to service dogs in training, but that weakens the argument for certification -- someone who would inappropriately identify their dog as a service dog would get around certification in those states by identifying their dog as a service dog in training.

If You're Not Happy With Your Life, Change is Essential

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 19:57:00 +0000

I took my human, Joanne, to an open mic last night. One of my favorite performers, The Levins, introduced a new song there. Joanne really liked it and we both thought the lyrics would be appropriate for most of my fans. I think the biggest problem with you humans is that you seem to have an awfully hard time moving and changing direction. Take a look at these lyrics:

Trust
by The Levins

I read a quote of Eleanor's at the cafe
"Do something that scares you everyday."

And if your dream is outside of the comfort zone, then what's the use,
What's the use of staying at home?

Chorus:

You've got to move to change the state you're in.
You've got to roll to strike all the pins.
Gotta get on if you're driving the bus,
The race has begun and we must trust.

When I find myself in an unknown place
I see old friends in each new face.
If the rift makes it seem like I'm choosing a side- no room for pride.
I'm here beside you, I won't deny you,
The road will curve and we'll just have to ride through.

Chorus

You can hide from your fate
You can hide from the day
You can hide from the pain till
Your life goes away.
If you don't like what your thinking about, then you can shift you turn it around.
Hope brings motion,
Motion brings change
Change is your friend when the going gets strange.
Change is your friend when the going gets strange.
When the going gets strange...

Chorus

We must change.

If you are interested in more from the Levins you can check them out on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Levins/122322022739, and on ReverbNation: http://www.reverbnation.com/thelevins

How Joanne and Maeve Met and Became Advocates

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 14:56:00 +0000

Usually I'm the voice of our team. After all I'm a lot younger and prettier than Joanne and people pay more attention to young, pretty girls. Sometimes, though, I feel I ought to let Joanne speak in her own voice. It's good for her self-esteem.
The following blog entry was edited from one of her Facebook messages.

Take it away Joanne:

I don't raise, sell, or train service dogs for other people. I suffer from bipolar disorder and I trained Maeve from the age of 6 months (with guidance from a professional service dog trainer, Jillian Gartner of APAW) as a psychiatric service dog for myself. What I do for other people is to educate them about the rights of those with disabilities -- especially psychiatric disabilities -- to emotional support animals and service dogs and to facilitate the process where I can -- such as collecting information about puppies who have been judged to be likely candidates for training and getting that info to people who are ready to train a service dog for themselves.

I spent a lot of time finding out about psychiatric service dogs (what they did, pros and cons, how you choose them, how you train them, what the legal definition of service dog is, etc.). It took me a year to get to the point where I felt I could make the decision to get one.

Then I had the problem in that I was in a no-dogs apartment complex. After a year of research I knew that a service dog couldn't be prohibited, but I was planning to self-train, so the dog wouldn't initially meet the definition of service dog under the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act). I delayed getting the service dog until I stumbled upon a reference to the Fair Housing Act which gives the disabled the right to Emotional Support Animals (pets) in no-pets housing.

During that delay I became dangerously suicidal and a dog might have made the difference between life and death. Luckily I survived and followed the steps to get an emotional support animal (which is what the puppy would be under the Fair Housing Act until trained for public access and to assist me). Maeve entered my life as an emotional support animal living in my no-dogs apartment -- but not until I suffered through out-and-out lies about the law ("the only dogs we have to allow are CERTIFIED service dogs"), intimidation tactics, and demands for illegal pet fee and deposit from the property manager. With the support of the Connecticut Fair Housing Center I was able to successfully request an accommodation from my landlord to have a dog in my no-dogs apartment without paying any deposits or fees for it.

At the same time I found information on my rights to emotional support animals, I found Advocacy Unlimited, Inc. -- a Connecticut non-profit organization that provided advocacy services and training for people with psychiatric disabilities. They were offering a three-month advocacy training course. I was so angered by my own ignorance of my rights and by the hoops through which I had been forced, illegally, to jump that I felt compelled to prepare myself to advocate for others.

Maeve accompanied me to every class. She charmed every student and the teacher. She'd lay silently under the conference table through the many hours of morning and afternoon sessions. She began identifying the other people at the table who needed help -- a woman who had mobility and pain problems due to arthritis in her knees suddenly found the poodle cuddling against her legs to keep them warm. Others got quiet hand kisses when they needed emotional support. Some were cheered up by her enthusiastic greetings as she entered the room or her delivery of energetic high-fives.

Maeve and I had lunch on campus in the dining room of Torrington, CT's Prime Time Clubhouse, a club-house model non-profit for the mentally ill). No one there had any experience with a service dog and she charmed and educated staff and members alike. The Advocacy Unlimited teacher saw what was going on in the classroom and the dining room and decided that Maeve was as good an advocate as any human. Maeve was added to the class roster and she and I graduated together in Torrington Town Hall this past September. We are both Advocacy Unlimited Mental Health Advocates. Not coincidentally, at least two members of PrimeTime House began training their own service dogs after meeting us.

We've begun doing speaking engagements as volunteers to spread the word. We've spoken at clubhouses, and at a regional mental health consumer advisory board meeting. We took time off between Thanksgiving and New Years and we're beginning to book dates for 2011 now.

We also educate people wherever we go: music venues, grocery stores, hiking trails, etc. Maeve is terrific at outreach; people are just brimming with questions about her. We've even had people stop their cars on the street to ask questions.

In order to reach more people we maintain a website and a Facebook page and publish Service Poodle's Dog Blog through Blogspot and on Facebook.

I am in the process of ordering an upfitted van in which Maeve, my emotional support cat Sibol, and I will travel and live so we can spread the word throughout the country.

Feel free to ask me any questions you may have and to forward this message to anyone who may be interested.

Thanks for your interest!

Joanne, Maeve's Service Human

Anyone Seriously Interested in Training Their Own Psychiatric Service Dog?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 19:38:00 +0000

PLEASE FORWARD AND SHARE THIS POST: Are you or someone you know seriously interested in obtaining and training a psychiatric service dog? A contact of ours has identified a couple of four-month-old black standard poodle puppies who are good candidates to do this work. Since finding a puppy with better than average chance of success is one of the hardest parts of obtaining and training a service dog, this is a great opportunity for the right person.

Please note: We don't want to discuss details in public (i.e., on my blog, Facebook page, or website). Please use a Facebook message to Joanne Shortell (http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=739553508) or the Contact Us page on my website (http://www.servicepoodle.com/contact-us) or e-mail to send your contact information, comments, or questions.

Here are some answers to some of the questions I anticipate you may have:

Yes, the candidate must have a psychiatric disability.
Cost of the dog: to be determined. Don't let that stop you from contacting us, we may be able to help you find financial help and/or to reduce the cost of the dog if necessary.
What do I mean by "seriously interested"? At a minimum you should have considered:

Pros and cons of dogs and service dogs for people with psychiatric disabilities and what psychiatric service dogs can be trained to do (please click on this link and read it all -- it's not too long)
What it's like to be connected to a service dog every minute of your life when you're not at home. Joanne will be happy to discuss with you what it's really like.
Whether you are ready to invest a LOT of your time, every day, for a long period of time (maybe two years), training your service dog.
How you will take care of the dog when you will not be at home (when you're working, shopping, etc.) before it is sufficiently trained for public access.Whether you are ready to learn positive training techniques. We won't get into the discussion of whether domination and/or forceful training methods are appropriate for dogs in general, but they are NOT recommended when training a psychiatric service dog.

These puppies would not be appropriate for a young child or any other person who would not be able to control an excited, medium-size dog without assistance.

Emotional Support--Not Small Potatoes

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 16:06:00 +0000

We recently received a message from one of my fans that illustrates beautifully how important an ESA can be:

In 1996 I had a serious brain aneurysm. I spent a lot of recovery time at my parents house. My parents had agreed to raise a Jack Russell terrier which was originally a birthday present to me from my sister. . . .

Well after my aneurysm while at my parent's house Micha took a very keen interest in my recovery. She was always licking my paralyzed hand and arm and she always knew when i was having a seizure. If she could have she would have torn the door to my room down to be with me. I always came to with her giving me hundreds of kisses.

When Joanne and I go out people have a lot of questions about me as a service dog. When we speak to a group there's always a lot of interest in what service dogs are, how you get one, etc. That's great, but service dogs are not what most people with disabilities need or want and only a very small minority of dogs have the temperament required to be a good service dog. Emotional support animals (ESAs) are another matter entirely.

Emotional support animals are simply pets who belong to people with disabilities. They need no special training and can be any commonly domesticated animal--not just a dog (although I personally believe dogs rule as ESAs). A cat, a bunny, or even an iguana could be an ESA. Joanne's cat, Sibol, is an ESA. Since doctors generally agree that nearly all disabled people can benefit from the emotional support of a pet, ESAs are not limited just to those of you who have psychiatric diagnoses.

The big advantage of having an ESA: ESAs must be allowed in the vast majority of no-pets housing. The Fair Housing Act and other federal laws require almost all landlords and condo/co-op organizations allow ESAs and forbid charging pet fees or deposits for them.

For more information about how to get an emotional support animal or to have an existing pet made into an ESA (including links to detailed info about what housing must allow ESAs and to a sample doctor's letter) see this page on my website: http://www.servicepoodle.com/how-to-get-an-emotional-support-animal.

Psychiatric Service Dogs for High School Students

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 22:50:00 +0000

Joanne's been corresponding with a Connecticut high school student who has been training a psychiatric service dog for her own use. The dog is working well in public and is trained to do specific things to help with the young woman's disability. She sounds like she might be better trained than me. Now she's approaching the hurdle of getting the school to accept her dog's presence in the classroom.

This should be a no-brainer under the Americans with Disabilities Act:

There's no problem getting a doctor's certification of her disability (only people with disabilities are entitled to service dogs under the ADA)
The dog can be kept under her control, is housebroken, does not engage in menacing behavior, and is trained specifically to assist with her disability. (i.e., it meets all the requirements for a service dog under the ADA)
The right to a service dog under ADA is not limited to adults.
She's old enough and otherwise quite capable of taking care of and control of her dog at school (the ADA does not require others to feed, water, or care for or control a service dog).
Public schools are public accommodations and are not exempt from the ADA. A parent with a service dog would have to be allowed in the classroom, on a field trip, or at a dance as a chaperon. Teachers have no fewer rights to service dogs than do employees in the business world.
State or local laws, rules, and regulations cannot reduce the rights given to the disabled by the ADA.

Let's all cross our fingers, pray, think positive thoughts, or whatever else we do in situations like this. I feel sure this dog will go to high school. I just hope they don't make the poor kid run an agility course full of bureaucratic hoops before they accommodate her dog.

Service Dogs in Doctors' Offices and Healthcare Facilities

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 22:47:00 +0000

I hate it when Joanne has to go to the psychiatrist. It's the ONLY place she doesn't take me. I can go into any doctor's office, and her therapist, internist, neurologist, physical therapist, and gynecologist must (and gladly do) allow me in their offices. We've repeatedly gone into our local hospital together to pick up our friends after outpatient surgery. I've even accompanied her when she was sent directly from her doctor's office to a radiologist's for an x-ray. Her psychdoc, however, has a severe allergy problem that rises to the level of a disability under the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act). Even though poodles are hypoallergenic, we can trigger an allergy in a small number of cases, so Joanne and her psychdoc have to compromise to accommodate each other's disability.

If the weather is going to be hot and Joanne doesn't have anyone to keep me company while she's in the office, she simply has to cancel her appointment. A hot car could be fatal to me. In cool weather, she checks in quickly with the receptionist and gives her the credit card to pay for the visit. She tells the receptionist to call her cell phone when the doctor is ready to see her and then comes out and hangs out with me in the back of the van until the phone rings. She goes into the office and I soon jump in the front seat and focus my sight on the door into which she disappears. A little bit later I start to drool due to anxiety. On her way out, Joanne signs the credit card slip and retrieves her credit card. By the time she comes back (hopefully it's the standard 15-minute appointment, but Joanne's psychiatrist is too conscientious not to extend if there's too much to discuss about her current condition) we're both tense and unhappy.

Today, Joanne came up with a brilliant idea to help both of us recover from our separation. We had about three hours before we went to her therapist and we went to a nearby state park and went for a little hike in the woods. We both got to move and breathe fresh air in the sunshine. There's nothing better for anxiety than that. Plus we got to play in the woods. I got to do all sorts of things that a service dog should never do in public. I got to play fight with her -- growling and mock biting -- and I got to go running free. All Joanne asked is that I stay in sight and come back when she signaled me.

By the time we got to the therapist I was a mellow, relaxed poodle. Joanne was in better shape too.

Frequently Asked Questions:

Isn't a service dog a health risk in healthcare facilities, groceries, restaurants, etc.? No, of the two of us Joanne is a much bigger health risk to you than I am. Her four grandchildren (all of whom are kindergarden, preschool and daycare age) are worse. There are comparatively very few diseases you can catch from a dog, but you can catch every single infectious disease carried by the humans you encounter -- especially if their hand-washing hygiene is less than stellar.

My Manifesto and Graduation Speech

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 22:45:00 +0000

Maeve - Fall 2010 Advocacy Unlimited Advocacy Class Graduation Speech

My name is Maeve. I am not the human reading this speech. I am the dog at her feet.

Everybody keeps talking about how I'm the first dog to graduate as an advocate. Come on now, by our very nature dogs are better advocates than humans. Who is more loyal? Who keeps secrets better? Who fights to the death for your cause? Who best consoles you when you fail? Certainly not humans.

It's not my species that makes my graduation a sensation. It's my age! I just celebrated my first birthday and already I'm a psychiatric service dog for Joanne and an advocate for all people with psychiatric disabilities. As a hobby I do a little therapy work.

I know you're only human. I shouldn't expect you to have the emotional intelligence of a dog, let alone a poodle. But it's been really hard to sit quietly under the conference table every Tuesday for months without howling out a truth that would be obvious to a brain damaged Irish Setter.

What are you people thinking? You lock up your sick in kennels instead of cuddling and licking them. You feed them poisonous chemicals with side effects you wouldn't tolerate if your dog was experiencing them, You isolate them from your packs.

If the drug companies could patent pets, then animals would be the first line of treatment for every condition in the DSM. Animals interact with no drugs, can't cause metabolic syndrome or diabetes, never overwhelm kidneys or liver, are approved for pediatric use, and improve both mental and physical health -- EVEN OVER THE COURSE OF A LIFETIME OF USE. Rather than a few 6-week clinical trials, thousands of years of experience demonstrate our safety and effectiveness.

If you want to help people with psychiatric disabilities, then get them animals. NOW. Look at your patient, your consumer, your lover, your relative, your friend, and ask why you aren't working to get them an animal NOW.

Federal laws gave these people the right to animals decades ago, yet no one seems to know this. Why not? What is more important than the right to unconditional love in your own home? Don't give me that "we're only human" excuse. At the end of this ceremony I expect you to get cracking.

Go to my website: www.servicepoodle.com. We are going across the United States to talk to everyone we can find. If you need more information, please talk to Joanne or invite us to talk to your group.

Thank you and may you all go to the dogs!