Analysis of the Discrimination Against Service Animals essays

Analysis of the Discrimination Against Service Animals essays Service animals perform a wide variety of services and tasks for people with disabilities, and many disabled people would not be able to function effectively without their animals. Initially, service animals were trained to help lead their blind owners through everyday tasks, from walking to work to negotiating around their homes. Called "guide dogs," many were trained by "Seeing Eye," Inc., and those dogs were known as "seeing-eye" dogs. Today, animals, not just dogs, provide a variety of services for the disabled and elderly. Guide dogs still help the blind, and service animals also are trained to help the deaf "hear," and aid wheelchair bound individuals by leading or pulling them, or helping them with balance and movement. They can also pick up and carry items, notify others if their owner is having a seizure, and even act as companions and therapy dogs for people with severe disorders such as autism. One expert writes, "Service dogs perform tasks such as operating light switches, retrieving items, pulling wheelchairs, and opening doors. Hearing dogs assist people who are deaf or hearing impaired by alerting them to sounds such as telephone rings, crying infants, alarms, and people calling them by name" (Henderson). Service animals are not pets, they are highly trained assistants who can make the difference between a disabled person living on their own or living in a group home or other assisted-living situation. Today, they are more than dogs. A variety of animals have been trained to assist the disabled, from miniature horses to pot-bellied pigs and beyond. The use of service animals is not a new idea. One researcher notes, "The use of animals to assist their ailing human counterparts dates to the early Greeks who gave horseback rides to raise the spirits of people who were incurably ill, and documentation from the seventeenth century makes medical reference to h...