The Americans with Disabilities Act, signed into law in 1990, codified the role of the Service Dog in assisting disabled Americans.
The Act, which is a civil rights law, was written to help ensure that disabled Americans had the same opportunities to access public areas as any typically able person. This included requiring changes to building and street access such as wider doorways to enable wheelchairs to fit, sidewalk ramps on the streets, and much more. One of the access changes passed with the law was the guarantee that a disabled person who uses a Service Dog individually trained to perform work or tasks directly related to the handler’s disability would have equal access.
Recently, a lot of fraudulent Service Dog handlers have been highlighted in the news, and many people in the social media environment have suggested that an official government registry would solve the “fake Service Dog problem.”
In order to understand the reasons why a registry will not only never be required, but is, in itself, a discriminatory idea, first, it must be clear that the ADA guarantees equal civil rights to disabled people. This law is the same type of law citizens fought for so adamantly in the mid-20th century. Equal rights not only for people of different ethnicity, but, with the passing of the ADA, equal rights for people of differing physical and mental ability.
Requiring disabled handlers to register their Service Dogs with the government would be blatantly discriminatory. If one “class” of disabled person was required to register their medical assistance (under the ADA the legal classification of Service Dogs is as durable medical equipment, with the same legal standing as a wheelchair or a hearing aid), then in order to be equal, all disabled people would be required to register their medical devices. If, then, all disabled persons were required to register their medical equipment, they would no longer be equal – as able persons do not have to register themselves in order to receive equal access to public places. This is directly contrary to the purpose and intent of the ADA. The law was written and passed to ensure that disabled people are not treated as second class citizens.
Remember, Service Dogs are not protected by the ADA. Disabled people who handle Service Dogs trained to assist them with their disabilities are who the ADA protects.
Second, should a bill requiring registration or certification of Service Dogs be passed, infrastructure would have to be created in order to facilitate it. In order to provide service for every disabled handler in the U.S. to register their dogs, buildings would have to be provided, computer systems designed, personnel hired to administer tests, transportation provided for disabled individuals in order to get to the registration site …
A uniform standard of training would have to be developed. The problem with this, is that each disabled person is an individual, and, as the ADA itself says, each Service Dog is trained individually to perform tasks directly related to their handler’s disability. Just as no two people are alike, so, no two Service Dogs are alike, and the tasks that work to assist one disabled person may be totally unsuited to assist another.
Then comes the matter of financing all of this infrastructure … New taxes and fees would have to be created in order to manage the “Service Dog Bureau,” and who would pay for these taxes and fees? A majority of disabled people live on a fixed income, as they are unable to work because they are disabled. Just surviving economically is difficult for most of the country’s disabled population; adding additional fees and taxes has the potential to be financially devastating.
The media’s hysterical push to publish stories about “fake Service Dogs” is missing the entire point; the ADA is a law that protects disabled people, and most of the people who bring their pets into stores parading them as Service Dogs are not disabled. The ADA does not guarantee the rights of anyone to take untrained pets into stores or businesses. People have abused the misinformation and miseducation easily available about Service Dogs to entitle themselves to take pets not trained for stressful public access out into places where pets do not belong.
Businesses have rights, too, under the ADA, and businesses have the right to ask that misbehaving dogs, whether fully trained Service Dogs or not, be removed from their premises.
You can learn more about the ADA and Service Dogs here: https://www.ada.gov/regs2010/service_animal_qa.html
Joaquin Juatai is the author of the book PTSDog: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and the Service Dog, available at booklocker.com, amazon.com, and barnesandnoble.com.
Conestoga Chuck 