Five Years Together and The Process Begins Again

October marked Shilo's and my fifth anniversary as a team. As many of my loyal readers may remember Shilo was taken into training as an adult dog estimated at 2 years old, so that made her three-ish at placement. I believe in retiring my dogs before some age-related health concern makes it an urgent necessity on both parts;  therefore, at the end of September I emailed Summit to begin the process of a successor placement.  Many of you may be asking yourself why I am going through a school when I am capable of training a dog myself to meet my needs in a service dog. The answer is simple.
1.Finding a suitable potential candidate is a crap shoot in the best of times even when one knows what they are looking for and what they need.
2. Anything can happen during the training and maturation process to turn a once promising candidate into a washout; leaving the person needing a service back at the beginning maybe a little richer in experience but more poor in time, emotional fortitude, energy, and money.
3. A service dog partner must look at the successor process as it will fit into their life as a multiple year process. The age old where do you want to be in 3 years question. Do you want to be just starting a full time working partnership or do you want to have been in a well established partnership for a year or more?
With my life including full time work with adult with developmental disabilities, dating, family, advocacy, and more I know I can have nothing less than a finished, mature service dog who is ready to join my life full time right out of the gate.

My Favorite Harness is Back!

My absolute favorite multi-functional service dog harness is back on the market! I bought this harness for my first service dog, Bastien, used it until he retired then transferred it to Shilo and used it until it literally died from use. I was saddened to discover the woman who made each harness by hand had passed away and the harness it seemed would not be made anymore. I decided to see if I could find someone to fix or re-create my harness to no avail. Non of the fixes or remakes would as well as the original. The Freedom Design harness is designed with service dog partners using wheelchairs in mind, but I have seen this versatile harness used for partners needing guiding, and light counter balance as well. I cannot say enough good things about this harness! If you are looking for a haness that is:

• Multi-funtional
• designed for use by people with extremely limited hand function
• designed to allow the dog freedom of movement
• designed to allow for a flexible and angle variable connection between dog and partner ( this is how I was able to have a wheelchair pulling dog who did not have to lean sideways to pull from along side the wheelchair)
• attractive
• light weight
• machine washable
• durable (at least I hope it still) I had mine for 12 years before it died.
• Reasonably priced at $85

This post is peppered with pictures of both my dogs in the same Freedom Design harness (that's right, the one I bough and used for 12 years)! Before you ask, none is paying me for this post. I just like to sing the praises of a quality product when I find one!

Petition Seeks to Stop the Sale of Service Dogs Products for Fraudulent Use

One of the biggest and oldest providers of service dogs for people with disabilities other than blindness, Canine Companion s for Independence, posted a petition urging Congress to take action against the Sale of fake service dog products.They need 10,000 signatures.
Read & Sign Petition

Wired Magazine Article Encourages Service Dog Fraud

A reader brought to my attention this week  that Wired Magazine published an article, The Cheat Code to Life, encourage their readers to pass off their pets as service dogs to gain entry to places and avoid fees. 

BRING MR. FLUFFY ANYWHERE: SERVICE DOG VEST ($33) 
Make every day Take Your Dog to Work Day and go everywhere—the coffee shop, the grocery store! How? Simply dress him in a vest that just happens to be bright orange and slap on a “Service Dog” patch. VIP status: confirmed.

My response: "I can't believe Wired Magazine is so desperate for content that your editorial team has decided that encouraging people to commit federal fraud by claiming that they qualify as a person with a disability under the ADA and that their dog is a service dog under the definition found in the same law. As a person living with a disability who has worked service dogs for over 12 years and has to deal with aggressive dogs, unhousebroken dogs, and off leash dogs in public all being passed off as service dogs causing  the community of legitimate service dog experience additional requirements such as current letters of medical necessity for people experiencing psychiatric disabilities to fly, the necessity to add to the definition that a service dog must be unhousebroken, under control, not aggressive and more. I urge Wired readers and editorial staff to consider the damage passing off their dog as a service dog does to people who require the assistance of a service dog to live their life considering legitimate and legal ways they can ask for their dog to accompany them and avoid fees such as developing a pet resume for them, or simply asking permission from the business they wish to enter. For a more on how serious the effects of service dog fraud have on the service dog user community visit http://servicedogsawayoflife.blogspot.com/search/label/community%20issues.
Sincerely,
Melissa Mitchell
Service Dogs a Way of Life