The Review
Thunder Dog is the dual story of Michael Hingson and his guide dog, Roselle, surviving the descent from the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. It is also the biography of Hingson living with a disability in the United States and the challenge of living blind in a world designed for the sighted. It is a moving biography worth reading in and of itself. But perhaps it has come back into greater relevance with today’s discussion of emotional support animals and service dogs in the news.
The book is titled Thunder Dog after Roselle. Roselle, like any service dog, is at her core still a dog. Michael Hingson’s highly trained service dog, off duty, is afraid of thunder. In the wee hours of September 11th, there was a thunderstorm and Hingson woke up to a frightened dog. He left the bed to comfort Roselle. Later that day, harness on, Roselle ignores the sound of explosions and scent of jet fuel to safely guide Hingson down 1400+ stairs and through the chaos that was Ground Zero. Hingson frankly writes about the challenges of being a service dog handler, from the idiosyncrasies of working with animals — often trained to be intelligently disobedient to prevent their handlers from hurting themselves — to the challenges of dealing with able-bodied people. While I cannot place where in the book the comment is from, Hingson states that to him the more interesting story isn’t how he and Roselle got down the stairs. The interesting story is how a blind man became a successful businessman and was on the 78th floor to begin with — a story told interspersed with the descent from the North Tower. I agree with Hingson. It is an incredible story.
As a formerly able-bodied person coming to terms with limitations, it’s poignant to see how Hingson handles the challenges placed in front of him from both the well meaning and the ignorant. It is a book that I believe would encourage a little more understanding from both sides of the able/disabled spectrum.
“Service animals are defined as dogs that are individually trained to do work or perform tasks for people with disabilities. Examples of such work or tasks include guiding people who are blind, alerting people who are deaf, pulling a wheelchair, alerting and protecting a person who is having a seizure, reminding a person with mental illness to take prescribed medications, calming a person with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) during an anxiety attack, or performing other duties. Service animals are working animals, not pets. The work or task a dog has been trained to provide must be directly related to the person’s disability. Dogs whose sole function is to provide comfort or emotional support do not qualify as service animals under the ADA.”
A Different Handler’s Story
“Are you training him for someone?”
“Yes, me.”
Chekov and I are not a normal team. He is a glorious rescue mutt. We think he’s a shepherd/husky/cattle dog mix. I am thin, young, and look perfectly healthy on the average day — if you don’t realize my shoulder dimples are in fact, shoulder subluxations. We’re working with an unconventional company to train him. Most of the time, people are quite pleasant when they speak to me about Chekov. Perhaps it’s the “resting bitch face”, or the decade training horses, that has given me a stronger no-nonsense vibe. Most skeptics seem to avoid confrontation with us, preferring to shoot dirty looks our way. But talk to anyone who has been a handler for long enough and you’ll find horror stories. I’m waiting for ours, because it will come.
Intelligent disobedience is the animal’s act of disobeying a command that will cause a handler harm. Chekov is a medical alert dog, trained to let me know when my body is about to throw me a curve ball. As a stubborn horsewoman, I rarely listen. Chekov knows it’s his job to make me stop and listen to him. He’s discovered the most effective way to do so: inform the world that he has husky vocal chords and husky lungs. Chekov will start with a light “tweety” sound before all out shrieking at me. He does this both at home, and in public. His last song was in the wine section of our grocery store — hardly the place I wanted to sit down on the floor!
“A person with a disability cannot be asked to remove his service animal from the premises unless: (1) the dog is out of control and the handler does not take effective action to control it or (2) the dog is not housebroken. ”
A singing husky is not out of control, and we cannot be asked to leave due to Chekov performing a task. But I’m quite certain it is what will run us into access issues in the future. There are plenty of reasons why a service dog might bark or make noise. Most of the time, it means a handler could very well be in distress within a few minutes or few hours and needs the time to react. Please give handlers space if you hear their dog bark.
But how do i spot a fake?
You don’t!
There are no registries for service dogs in the United States (other countries have different regulations). No companies that a person must go through. Service dogs have bad days. They’re not robots, and sometimes they’re just tired/sore/woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Hassling a handler — who likely is having a bad day too — is simply cruel.
If you see a dog that is misbehaving and the handler is doing nothing to stop it, the best action to take is alerting the management in charge of the facility you’re in and let them handle it.
“When it is not obvious what service an animal provides, only limited inquiries are allowed. Staff may ask two questions: (1) is the dog a service animal required because of a disability, and (2) what work or task has the dog been trained to perform. Staff cannot ask about the person’s disability, require medical documentation, require a special identification card or training documentation for the dog, or ask that the dog demonstrate its ability to perform the work or task.”
Lastly, please remember that these dogs are not robots. When someone brings a pet into a service dog only area, it is an unfair distraction to the service dog. Even if your dog is well behaved, it needs to stay at home. If your dog has health issues, then it should go to a dog day care with attached vet — not with you everywhere. Chekov has been charged several times by off leash or uncontrolled dogs. While we are working on desensitizing him to the sudden appearance of dogs in places they shouldn’t be, it is an unfair double standard to expect no reaction from a service dog if a pet is barking aggressively at them. There is an understandable higher expectation of training and behaviour of a service dog. But every pet owner should train their dog and expect excellence. Our dogs, after all, only know what we teach them.
— L.J & Chekov