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How Service Dogs Provide Support
By Lisa Esposito, Staff Writer | Nov. 23, 2016, at 9:42 a.m.
Emotional support animals and service dogs are two different breeds, so to speak.
Much more than loving pets with a purpose, highly trained service dogs spend
months learning how to best help their handlers perform major life tasks despite
physical or psychiatric challenges. For handlers and service dogs alike, intense
commitment to working together leads to life-changing partnerships.
Working Animals, Not Pets
The Americans with Disabilities Act spells out the types of tasks service dogs
perform. Guiding people who are blind, pulling a wheelchair and alerting people
who are deaf are examples. Protecting a person having a seizure, calming a person
with PTSD during an anxiety attack and reminding a person with mental illness to
take prescribed medications also qualify.
Service dogs perform some pretty amazing feats, says Dr. Carol (C.J.) Betancourt,
a retired physician, service-dog user and co-founder of the Arizona-based
Foundation for Service Dog Support. “We have quite a few clients with seizures
who have gotten dogs,” Betancourt says. “Many of the dogs are able to detect the
seizure before it happens. They can warn the person so they will sit down or lay
down on the floor.” Dogs usually stay with the person during the episode, she says,
and are trained to run and get help or bark once it’s over.
People with diabetes may benefit from having a service dog who can alert them to
hazardous high and low blood sugar levels. “We’ll usually take saliva samples
during the training: one of when the sugar is high and one of when the sugar is
low,” Betancourt explains. “Our dogs are trained to spin around; to go in a circle in
one direction if it is high and in the opposite direction if it is low.”
When patients develop a mobility challenge, Betancourt would like her fellow
physicians to broaden their treatment options. “Instead of automatically ordering
them a wheelchair, a service dog ought to be part of the dialogue,” she says.
[See: Was That a Seizure?]
About three years ago, Detective Scott Sefranka of the Phoenix Police Department
nearly died in a shooting. His physical recovery from the gunshot wound to his
abdomen took months after much of his intestines were removed. More surgery to
a fractured arm, nerve damage and back issues were additional physical reminders.
“What I didn’t really expect at all that was the mental issues I suffered,” Sefranka
says. “I had developed PTSD. I developed anxiety about not wanting to leave the
house. I didn’t want to go to work. I didn’t want to associate with people at work. I
basically tried to stay hidden.”
His results from cognitive behavioral therapy and EMDR, often used to treat posttraumatic stress disorder, were mixed. Digestive issues limited medication options.
His wife started researching service dogs, but because the FSDS program centers
on golden retrievers (who shed), the couple looked elsewhere at first. But they
found too-long wait lists and too-high costs at other service foundations.
Eventually, they bought their own service dog – a poodle named Digby – and
training commenced.
Following roughly 18 months of basic then individualized training, Digby now
helps Sefranka by retrieving objects, opening doors and performing a variety of
other physical tasks, including serving as a balance and brace when the detective
struggles with hip stability related to the bullet’s exit-wound damage.
Digby also helps Sefranka deal with his mental health concerns. “He can actually
pick up and sense when I have anxiety issues,” he says. “He’ll act as a distractor
either by licking me or nudging me. Since I don’t take the medications, I need
grounding a lot of times. He’ll lay across me or put pressure on me, which helps
ground me back to reality.”
For Sefranka, PTSD means regular bouts of nightmares, night tremors, anger
issues, isolation and depression. “Digby’s really been a key component in me
moving forward,” he says. “Since I got him, I’ve been able to go back to work. I’ve
been able to go back out in public and kind of resume my life as normal.”
[See: 7 Ways Pets Can Make You Healthier.]
Animal Distinctions
Canine Companions for Independence, based in Santa Rosa, California, works with
clients with disabilities from a wide range of conditions including spinal cord
injury, post-polio syndrome, multiple sclerosis and cerebral palsy. “Almost
anything that results in a person using a wheelchair, walker or scooter,” says CEO
Paul Mundell. They also place the Labradors they breed as hearing dogs and
facility dogs, which are trained to work with professional caregivers in settings like
hospital rehabilitation units.
They also place dogs called skilled companions. “It’s typically the child and one or
both parents and the dog who form the team,” Mundell says. “Often we make those
types of placements either with children who have Down syndrome or autism or
another disability but for whom a service dog isn’t yet an option, maybe because
they’re too young to independently handle a dog.”
Emotional support animals are different in that, for one thing, they don’t have to be
dogs. “It’s an animal whose presence provides emotional or psychological comfort
to the person,” Mundell says. “It has no special training.” While emotional support
animals are recognized under the Fair Housing Act, he says, their owner’s rights
are much more limited.
Mundell’s group “strongly opposes” websites where anyone can obtain an online
certificate and a doggie vest with a patch to get pets access to public places where
service dogs are allowed. “The biggest misconception is that passing your pet off
as a service dog is somehow a victimless crime,” he says. Instead, he says, dogs
who aren’t properly trained might attack other dogs, be disruptive or leave messes
in stores or restaurants – and create backlash for legitimate service teams.
Training a true service team is expensive. “From birth of the puppy to placement …
costs us a little over $50,000,” Mundell says. “That cost covers essentially 10 years
of service. We don’t pass that cost along – graduates pay nothing.”
[See: 14 Ways to Protect Seniors From Falls.]
Awareness and Respect
When a person with a service dog team approaches a public facility, staff members
may only ask two questions, according to the ADA: “Is the dog a service animal
required because of a disability?” and “What work or task has the dog been trained
to perform?”
“Those of us with service dogs who use them in a legitimate manner – we’re just
like anyone else in society,” says Sefranka, whose now serves on the FSDS board.
“We’re not trying to game the system. We’re not trying to pull the wool over
anyone’s eyes because we just want to have our dog with us. In many instances,
these are animals that provide a medical function and are a medical necessity.”
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