Vested Interests

I guess I’m as big a dork as your date– I’m left with an intense curiosity as to what non-apparent disability requires a service dog. Anyone?

It’s actually against the law to ask a person why they have a service animal. You’re allowed to ask if it is a service animal and what tasks it is trained to perform, but not what disability the person has.

Many people have non-apparent disabilities, such as epilepsy, and it’s extremely rude to ask them. Obviously your date needs a lesson in manners

MS, can’t bend over and lift things.
Not legally blind, but severely vision impaired.
Many other reasons I’m sure. But her date was not a dork, he was a dumbass.
A dork might be curious… a dumbass calls her on it in public. What was his reason? He was “showing off” for his date.
Loser

A lot of those dogs are trained by volunteers. The trainers wont’ be blind because in order to train a dog to not walk into the wall you must yourself be able to not walk into the wall.

This guy is disgusting. Don’t make judgements regarding things you don’t know about.

How unbelievably RUDE. Why is it any of his business? How disgusting…I assume he also accosts people in wheelchairs/with crutches/burn victims and demands to know what happened to them.

Man, sounds like this ass needs a trip to Ettiquette Hell.

Evidently, I also can’t spell “Etiquette”. Way to be. XD

It’s not actually against the law to ask somebody why they’re using a service animal in private conversation–it’s just illegal to do so to screen access to a venue under ADA jurisdiction.

However, it’s against all good taste and manners to accost random strangers in order to prove things to one’s date. Isn’t it funny what idiots people can prove themselves in trying to impress somebody?

There’s a growing trend to have service dogs as peanut detectors for those with severe anaphylaxis – http://www.peanutdog.com/ – It’s not something that you could see, but certainly life saving to the person afflicted

Non-apparent disabilities can include spine or other hidden-under-clothes problems with the body — sight, hearing, the list goes on. They are sometimes prescribed for serious mental maladies, such as agoraphobia. These dogs aren’t sent to you by DMV, like parking placards are; you demonstrate your disability to qualify and you’re matched with an animal who either specializes, such as a seeing-eye dog, or is a generalist dog, who would just help you navigate your daily life more ably than you can yourself, helping you shop, go to the library, visit the beach, things you may be too unsteady to do alone, even if you’re mobile.

Since I’ve become disabled, I’ve learned a sad fact: There’s a lot of animosity among some people toward the disabled, and many are quite willing to express it, like this jerk.

What a goof-up. Here’s the fix.

“Non-apparent disabilities can include spine or other hidden-under-clothes problems with the body — sight, hearing, the list goes on. SERVICE ANIMALS are sometimes prescribed for serious mental maladies, such as agoraphobia.”

Hi everyone My name is Jeffrey I am 52 years old and I have a service dog Max, a 4 year old American White Sheppard. I live in Florida, Pinellas county. On July 4th my live-in assistant and I walked over to the Park to enjoy the Fireworks. Let me say that Max has never shown fear to loud noises and we thought this might be the time to try this out sitting somewhere in the rear so we could exit quickly if needed.. When approaching the entrance, I was stopped by a uniformed Park Police Officer. He stated to me that no dogs were allowed in the park for this event, that they might knock down a child or bite someone. Max is a service dog and has no aggressive tendencies at all, thats what makes him proud vest wearer.. I then told him he was a service dog and showed his registration tag, he then asked who was disabled, I told him I was, he asked what does the dog do for you, I told him he leads me through crowds and watches that I do not trip. He picks things up for me and he braces for me to get up and down. He then looked at me and said he had seen me in the park before on several occasions with max and that I was riding a bicycle so in his opinion i was not disabled. In 2003 i fought a battle with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, I suffer from very high cholesterol due to taking medicine to combat my rheumatoid arthritis and Lupus. I do exercise and I do get out and enjoy life as best I can. I need Max to manage in crowds. The officer embarrassed me and I almost went into a panic attack, I had to sit down. Max was noticeably shaken as well as he feels my every mood. One would think that a requirement ot be a Police Officer would be to know the law. My holiday was spoiled by ignorance.

sorry to hear that- you should have gotten that officers badge number! people can be so rude and ignorant about disabilities. i used to do private duty, and had a client who was only in her thirties, but had severe heart problems. people would be rude as hell to her on public transportation, because she would get out of her wheelchair and take a regular seat, folding the chair and thereby saving some room on the bus. “she ain’t paralyzed,” one person said, refusing to give her a front-of-the-bus disabled seat. i glared the person down and snapped, “neither are you, but i can see how your stupidity would qualify you to take a handicapped seat!”
she got the point.
what she didn’t realize was that my client’s heart would not be able to handle taking more than a few steps at a time. this 34 year old woman had suffered numerous strokes and heart attacks (she died last year, not even 40 years old yet), and she was prone to syncope (chronic fainting).
i had surgery awhile back and couldn’t drive. i had to walk with a cane. being in my twenties, people looked at me like i was trying to get away with something, and while i had to catch the bus until my leg regained motor skill, people would actually look at me, look at my cane, and move to the disabled seats. as if i went out and bught a can just so i could claim a damned bus seat!
i would get dirty looks when an elderly person, who had no physical disabilities, got on the bus, and i wouldn’t move from my disabled seat. have we really become so jaded and cynical that we regard everyone with suspicion? damn. says a lot about human nature.

this guy was a total ass.

bought a cane, not bught a can. dammit. lol

As another person with an “invisible disAbility,” this horrifies me. Unfortunately, it’s all too common — I don’t have a service animal, but I do have a handicap placard for my car and get crap for it way more often than a non-disAbled person would imagine.

Mostly I get, “You don’t look disAbled!” Which is nice, because I’ve got a snappy comeback for that one: “What does brain cancer ‘look’ like, asshole?”

While it is true, at least inmy state that you do not need a special license to have a service animal, the dogs have to be increadibly well trained and most people’s aren’t. I’m training a sevice dog for my sister who has serious socialphobia, I’ve never been asked anything negative about him, mostly because he’s so damn cute. But it pisses me off when people assume that because someone isn’t blind or in a wheelchair that they can’t possibly need a service animal.