Service Dogs in the era of MAHA
Service dogs have been utilized in the United States for nearly a hundred years, but incredibly we are still learning their capabilities and willingness to assist with human disabilities. In an era of “Making America Healthy Again,” (MAHA) as platformed by Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., what if service dogs’ assistance is threatened just as we barely grasp the potential of their benefit? The inherent core of MAHA is eugenics, with broad attacks on disability support included as part of the wider Trump administration’s policies. Eugenics based policies like MAHA that wish for the elimination of disability entirely, particularly visible disability in public, will further limit access to service dogs. Service dogs are specifically management aids–they are not curative to any condition and they are an immediate disability signifier. As a service dog handler, this means I am seen as disabled automatically, chronically, and consistently. “Looking physically disabled” is historically more than being considered unpalatable; it has been punishable legally before MAHA, through the shameful “ugly laws,” the last of which were not repealed until 1974. But we first need to examine service dog culture and history in this country to better understand how access to these living medical aids could be significantly affected by an increase in eugenicist policy and national sentiment.
The initial use of dogs as supports well predates the United States, with records showing that dogs have been used across cultures and at various levels to assist with mobility throughout much of human history. However, much of service dog culture in the United States has been centered around veteran rights and organizations, with guide dogs as the standard. Understanding this historical context is essential to grasp the specific ways service dogs have been deployed in the United States, particularly in connection with veterans’ needs and institutional support. After World War I, the use of dogs as assistants for visual impairment resulting from combat duty became more prominent, as detailed well by the International Guide Dog Federation. Veterans’ disabilities then further drove the evolution of support provided by service dogs, such as expanding their desired skill sets into mobility assistance and eventually into support for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Undeniably, service dogs are valuable to many former military personnel. However, when a system develops in a hyper specific cultural context, those who are left out, lose out, and that system’s development is inherently limited. The only marginalized community that anyone can join, at any time, is the disability community. That dynamic creates such limitless intersectionality and potential to alter the needs and outcomes of service dog teams beyond the scope of the use cases legitimized by military service.
In Boston, where my service dog organization, Ruff Translating, is based, we see firsthand the effects of assumptions about the profile of a service dog handler. Many of my clients are rejected from programs at the outset because they’re civilians, or because they present with a disability that is deemed “too much” for the capacity of the program dog organization.[1] Maybe the handler’s mental health profile includes PTSD, but as a comorbidity to autism, bipolar disorder, developmental conditions, or non-military trauma. The manifestations of those conditions can make engaging in a program designed specifically for military-based PTSD nearly impossible. That barrier, combined with a veteran-focused training program, may inherently be triggering for a handler. For example, many of my clients deal with adverse symptoms around the interaction of authority, sensitivity, and rejection. They can struggle with directives instead of collaborative partnerships when learning to work with their service dogs, and can also often require significant foundational trust-building before meaningful training can occur. Disability is non-linear and individual, and it is easy to create barriers in a standardized program with limited or specific scope. The examples go far beyond psychiatric service dogs.
Many non-profit service dog organizations have emerged globally since the 1920s, and many in the United States focus on veterans, but there is also a crisis of available service dogs nationally. These organizations that do not explicitly serve veterans, may focus on youth or, like Ruff, may operate as small business/self-pay, which serve a broader range of disabilities and/or community members. There are also organizations training service dogs with a very standardized, and sometimes limiting, set of tasks. For example, a non-profit service dog organization may train pressure therapy and interruption of repetitive unwanted behavior (like pacing, or tapping one’s knee) before placing a dog as PTSD support with their handler. That does not mean those are the only tasks that the dog could do that would benefit that disabled person. Many psychiatric service dogs can also find exits/support people, pick up objects, retrieve medicine, and provide scent alerts to oncoming episodes. Veteran organizations have fundraising capabilities to assist their handlers, including governmental backing or even completely donated fully trained dogs. But, if you can afford to contribute to the training of your dog (a cost that can run upwards of twenty thousand dollars), you may be able to tailor training more specifically to your needs. This dynamic has created a distinctive economic class access issue, exacerbated by the fact that there are precious few experienced service dog trainers, further limiting opportunity for many. MAHA’s goals are misguided around chronic illness such that there may not be continued support for even underwriting the funding of veterans’ service dogs, let alone increased access for civilian handlers.
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), passed in 1990, assigned those using service dogs legal status, at least in terms of public accommodations, employment, and some aspects of functioning within society. However, society historically catches up to legal access extremely slowly. Beyond that, there are widespread reports nationally of misuse of service dog permissions by non-disabled people. The Department of Transportation regulations were updated as recently as 2020 to combat the number of travelers trying to pass off their pets as service dogs.[2] More important than fraud by non-disabled people is denial of legitimate service dog team access by businesses, institutions, medical providers, etc, clearly demonstrating that the law that says service dogs must be allowed is not enough to create an accessible environment.
Imagine that you have an “invisible disability.” As a working definition, an invisible disability can be described as a disability that is conditionally passing, or, in many circumstances, “unnoticed” by others. This is always conditional, as with any disability, there is a set of circumstances under which someone’s disability becomes apparent and impacts social relationships. When someone begins with their service dog, that dog, like any assistive device, becomes an instant signifier to disability status, and that can be a jarring experience for a new handler. The experience of service dog handlers at the intersection of multiple identities becomes more complicated when we layer the semi-recent legal validation of service dogs on top of multiple disability signifiers. For example, people tend to make their primary association of service dogs with white, older, masculine-presenting veterans. The public’s treatment of non-white service dog handlers who may have other disability signifiers (e.g., hearing aids, wheelchair, cane) can go from bad to worse when there are those cross-sections of multiple marginalized groups and those aforementioned disability signifiers. Handlers experience ableism in everything from denial of service to active violence and calling the police, from the first-person reports of medical appointments I have received as a white service dog program manager. Even if there was not any sort of resurrection of eugenicist threat with this administration, there is a long way to go for service dog teams to thrive and receive appropriate access.
We can further understand the peril of disability public access, particularly for service dog teams, if we consider this within the ongoing Covid pandemic. Masking, specifically with a respirator grade mask, is yet another disability signifier. Those who wear masks are interpreted as caring about disabled people, having health complications, or being radical. Wearing a mask has become a political act when it should just be understood as a common sense precaution. We are now contending with escalating risk of Covid and other infectious diseases due to the tidal wave of national health policy changes championed by vaccine-denier RFK Jr. One of the shamefully avoided reasons for increased mask bans and disdain toward masking is the active distancing from any relationship to disability. This dynamic further marginalizes us and, of course, increases our rate of illness and death. Masking is a public symbol of sickness, instead of a symbol of care, and service dogs could eventually be seen similarly. Not only that, but as mentioned, many disabled people wear masks, which can create tension publicly. If folks are wearing a mask and have a service dog, those two signifiers could be enough to create very tense public experiences or even instances of violence.
RFK Jr.’s recent “Make America Healthy Again” platform, along with endless misinformation and even a claim for a plan to cure autism (a proven genetic condition) puts the disability community in jeopardy.[3] It is a distinctive shift from even basic inclusion and considering the most elementary of access needs, to conditionally tolerating only those presenting as having “overcome disability.” Veteran Advocacy may have been a primary push for service dogs in the States initially, but that will not ultimately protect us from the attempted gutting of educational protections for disabled students and/or the attacks on the ADA, both of which may have consequences in legal public access for service dog teams.
Public access for service dogs is imperative for many handlers. There are dogs trained for one “task,” but that task may be crucial for daily living–including balance support for mobility issues. There are also service dogs with many tasks. Ruff has dogs with fifteen plus to assist, and can update those tasks as time continues. It is not about the number of tasks, however, but about the profound experience of independence that the dogs can give. It is a relief that my service dog, Oscar, alerts me to multiple medical conditions, and helps me take precautionary measures or bring medications. Oscar can also pick up dropped objects, help me up, detect a food allergen, and assist me up steep inclines. Almost everything I do independently in some way is possible by Oscar. We say “Service Dogs Save Lives” and mean it.
As a trainer and service dog handler, I would much rather focus my time and energy on improving access to service dogs and for all service dog teams, and on continuing to better envision and execute the training, but the urgency of our current national context calls for more. Living a disabled life has always been a radical act, and, in this context, we need to cultivate service dog trainers and handlers in the disability justice movement under the increasing pressures to conform to a eugenicist narrative because of our specific visibility, and inherent taking of disabled space. The time for being grateful for crumbs has long passed, and we need strong public disability representation for the next hundred years of service dog teams.
Notes
- A “program dog” is a dog defined by the service dog community as fully or at least partially trained by a service dog organization before being placed with the disabled handler. The handler often goes through minimal training of a few days to a few weeks with their dog at the time of adoption. ↑
- Newest Regulations from December 2020 for the Department of Transport can be found on their website. ↑
- “By September, we will know what has caused the autism epidemic and we’ll be able to eliminate those exposures,” Kennedy said. (BBC NEWS) ↑
Featured image courtesy Janusz Walczak.
Ejay Eisen can generally be found working with a crew of service dogs in Boston at Ruff Translating, pun intended. He lives at the cross roads of disability justice, unlearning white supremacy, loving his trans identity, queerness as in throwing bricks, and unmasking his autism. He has spent over 20 years in the dog industry surviving capitalism. In his spare time he enjoys playing Zelda and crocheting/knitting love letters to his co-conspirator and wife, Kimberly.
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