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Industry Information
Assistance Dogs |
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Requires Public Access
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No Public Access
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Physical disabilities other than those related to sight or hearing
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Facility Placements
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Emotional & Psychological disabilities
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Hospital Visitations
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Seizure Alert/Response
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Social, Companion
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Terminology:
Asisistance Dogs not only provide a specific service to their handlers, but also greatly enhance their lives with a new sense of freedom and independence.
Types of Assisitance Dogs:
Guide Dogs assist blind and visually impaired people by avoiding obstacles, stopping at curbs and steps, and negotiating traffic. The harness and U-shaped handle fosyer communication between the dog and the blind partner. In this partnership,the human's role is to provide directional commmands, while the dog's role is to insure the teams safety even if this requires disobeying an unsafe command.
Hearing Dogs assist deaf and hard of hearing individuals by alerting them to a variety of household sounds such as adoor knock or doorbel, alarm clock, oven buzzer, telephone, baby cry, name call or smoke alarm. Dogs are trained to make physical contact and lead their deaf partners to the source of the sound.
Service Dogs assist physically disabled people by retrieving objects that are out of their each, pulling wheelchairs, opening and closing doors, turning light switches off and on, barking for aert, finding another person, assisting ambulatory persons to walk by providing balance and counterbalance and many more other individual tasks as needed by a disabled person.
Social/Therapy dogs fall into several categories.
- Some are trained companions who provide unconditional love as well as other tasks needed for home-bound individuals.
- They are also placed with health care professionals to assist in prescribing emotional and physical therapeutics activities in rehab hospitals, care facilities or private practices.
- Some are placed and live at facilities such as senior or extended care centers.
- Some are accompanied by volunteers that visit homes and hospitals.
However and wherever these animals are placed, there is no denying the value of these well-mannered dogs. They have the ability to provide healling that conventional medicine often is otherwise incapable of supplying.
Etiquette With Assistance Dogs
In general...
When you meet a person with an assistance dog, please remember that the dog is working. You don't want anything to interupt the dog from preforming its tasks.
A few specifics...
- Speak to the person first
- Do not make distracting noises aimed at the assistance dog.
- Do not touch the assistance dog without asking permission.
- Do not feed an assistance dog.
- Do not ask personal questions about the handler's disability or intrude on is or her privacy.
- Don't be offended if the handler declines to chat about the assistance dog.
Guide Animal Act
The British Columbia Guide Animal Act is legislation that covers accessibility rights for assistance animals.
