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PSD LIFESTYLE
Change Your State Service Animal Access Laws: Letter Template
by Joan Esnayra, Ph.D.
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Date
| Your Name | | Street Address | | City, State Zip | | Your phone # | | Your email |
Representative or Senator’s Name
Street Address, Suite #
City, State Zip Code
Dear Representative or Senator Name,
As a concerned citizen and voter, I would like to enlist your assistance in updating a number of state name’s disability laws, in order to render them consistent with the terminology established in the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA).
Since passage of the ADA, numerous other federal laws have been amended so that their disability-related terminologies are consistent with the ADA. Some of these laws include: the Air Carrier Access Act, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and the Fair Housing Act. In addition, many states have amended state disability laws to be consistent with ADA, also.
Importantly, the ADA defines a disabled person as one who “has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities.” The ADA definition includes, not only those persons with physical disabilities, but also those whose disabilities are brain-based such as, epilepsy, mental retardation, mental illness, traumatic brain injury, Autism, Asperger’s Syndrome, and Alzheimer’s disease.
state name’s laws do not currently recognize the latter disability category perhaps because our laws were written long before there was medical consensus on brain-based disorders as a category of disability. Times have changed and medical knowledge has advanced significantly. Thus, it is time to amend state name’s laws so that they are consistent with the ADA and reflect current medical understanding of the range of brain-based disorders.
Specific state name laws that require updating are listed below:
LIST YOUR STATE’S LAWS (BY CODE) HERE
There is yet another significant development in the world of disability that state name state laws need to be rendered sensitive to. Service animals, according to the ADA, are “…individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of an individual with a disability….” (28 CFR 36.104). Currently, state name’s state laws only recognize the work of service animals for a limited set of disabilities including blindness, deafness, and mobility-impairments. Yet, the utility of service animals has so advanced over the last ten years that they are also being used effectively by persons disabled by brain-based disorders. Service Animals assist such persons to function more independently on a daily basis, and in some cases, help them to return to the workforce. For example, Service Animals may assist persons with Alzheimer’s disease by reminding them to take medication and leading them safely home when they become disoriented in time or place. Children with Autism are assisted by Service Animals at school, in order to interact appropriately with their peers when they might, otherwise, isolate themselves. Service Animals are also being used to help children with learning disorders to read books and walk safely home where they might, otherwise, be vulnerable to human predators. Persons living with mental illness are using Service Animals to do work or perform tasks that assist in the management of Panic Disorder, Major Depression, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, so that they too, may re-join the workforce. Persons with Epilepsy are using Service Animals to help alert in advance to impending seizures, so that they may take needed medication and position themselves safely in preparation for the seizure. Such dogs are trained to remain at their handler’s side during the seizure and bark until help arrives.
IF THE YOUR STATE LAWS REQUIRE THAT ONLY SERVICE DOG TRAINERS FROM CERTIFIED OR STATE-SANCTIONED SERVICE DOG TRAINING ORGANIZATIONS ONLY, THEN PLEASE INCLUDE THE TWO PARAGRAPHS BELOW
It is unfortunate that our state’s laws are so outdated that they do not recognize the ever-increasing use of trained service animals by persons with disabilities. Furthermore, the assistance dog industry has for many years led lawmakers to believe that service animals may only be trained by organizations such as theirs. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. From a fiscal perspective, the assistance dog industry has an inherent conflict of interest in this debate. When an organization trains such a service animal, a dog in this case, it costs approximately $20,000 to produce one service dog. Most of these dollars go to support the infrastructure of the organization and salaries for its staff.
When a disabled individual hires a private professional dog trainer to assist them in training their own service animal, the cost is rarely more than $1,000 out-of-pocket, and this is a tax-deductible medical expense for the disabled individual! Furthermore, owner -training requires no waiting period, as is the case for many service dog training organizations that cannot keep pace with consumer demand. Yet, state’s laws, as currently written, favor the assistance dog industry by stating only “certified” or “state-approved” trainers may train these dogs. Thus, I hope that your office will advocate for removing this inherently conflicted and artificial legal barrier so that disabled persons may take responsibility for training their own service animal, ideally, through employment of an independent contractor professional dog trainer in their locale.
Thank you for your attention to these matters. I will follow this letter up with a telephone call in ten business days to see what work has been accomplished
Your Signature
Your Name Typed
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