Assistance dogs aren’t just for the blind or visually impaired. These dogs are helping people live fuller lives today.
Guide Dogs
Guide Dogs, also known by the name Seeing Eye dogs help blind and visually-impaired people lead independent lives. These dogs help their owners travel safely to school, work and other destinations. Guide dogs have been trained to stop and alert their owners when there is a change in elevation, like curbs or stairs, or if they are above obstacles such as low-hanging branches.
Guide dogs are often German Shepherds or Labrador Retrievers. The puppies live with volunteer families for the first year and then learn how to help blind and visually impaired people. After they have completed the required training, they will be matched up with an owner.
Hearing Dogs
It’s hard to be deaf in a noisy world. Hearing dogs are a great service because they alert their owners when important sounds occur, such as ringing phones, crying babies, buzzing smoke detectors, or doorbells. They are usually a bit smaller than guide dogs, and they are often rescued by animal shelters. These dogs receive special training to ensure that the deaf or hard of hearing do not miss any important auditory clues.
Service dogs
Service dogs assist people with disabilities of other kinds. They can be trained to alert a person who has a seizure disorder to the likelihood of a seizure, to help steady someone with balance issues, to pull a wheelchair, or to fetch items out of reach for a disabled individual. These dogs can perform many tasks such as opening doors, turning light switches on and off, and keeping children with Autism from wandering. Labradors or Golden Retrievers are frequently chosen as service dogs. Some of these dogs come from animal shelters.
Emotional support dogs
An emotional support dog provides companionship for someone with a mental or psychiatric impairment. These dogs are different from other assistance animals in that they do not have a particular function. Their presence can reduce anxiety and stress, as well as loneliness. Owners can also spend more time outside and interact with others by caring for their emotional support dogs.
Where are Assistance Dogs welcome?
Assistance dogs are welcomed wherever their owners go. The Americans with Disabilities Act, or A.D.A., allows for assistance dogs to accompany their owners anywhere they need to go. The Americans with Disabilities Act (A.D.A.) stipulates that people with disabilities are allowed to take their trained assistance dogs anywhere they want to go. This includes stores, restaurants, and hotels. Since emotional support dogs do not have a specific training, they don’t receive the same protections as other dogs. However, many businesses and stores still allow them to accompany their customers.
The A.D.A. does not apply to emotional service dogs, but the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has passed a regulation that allows emotional support dogs to live with their owners in designated non-pet housing as long as the owner can produce a letter of need from a doctor. Although emotional service dogs are not covered by the A.D.A., the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development passed a rule that allows them to live in non-pet housing with their owners, provided they can provide a letter of necessity from a physician.
A yearly veterinary exam will ensure that your pet remains healthy and happy, whether it is an assistance dog or a beloved family pet. Contact us to book your pet’s next examination.
