Service Dog For Charlene
I visited the Salvation Army store (in my
local area of Statesville, NC) with my Service Dog [ in training]. The
manager of the store told me to leave the store. I was told that I
could not have a dog in the store. I respectfully replied that my dog
is not a pet, that she is a Service Dog - and in training. The woman
then told me that she did not care for dogs and that I needed to leave.
I told her that the Americans with
Disabilities act of 1990 gives my service dog and I the right to be in a
store just like anyone else. She then told me that she was allergic to
dogs and that I had to go. I was also accompanied by my daughter (who
was very pregnant at the time - due to be induced in 6 days) as well as
my two older grandchildren ages 11 & 9. We were next in line at the
counter and I told the lady that I would be glad to leave as soon as my
purchase was completed. She snatched my items up from my hand and
started to ring them up. I mentioned that they had the dots on them for
half price off (which is a regular Wednesday promotion on clothes) and
was told that I was not a senior citizen and did not qualify for the
half off. I was stunned, this was clearly a retaliation to me trying
to educate the lady in a very nice way on the ADA law governing service
animals. I was so upset, my daughter was outraged and the grandchildren
were just bewildered. This is supposed to be an agency that helps
people - Who would have thought that they would be the ones
discriminating... I for one will NEVER set foot inside another
Salvation Army Store again. I hope that the corporate office takes
this to heart and actually teaches their employees about Service Animals
and "How best to handle situations with people with disabilities" An
apology would be nice.
You can follow the story on Charlene's facebook page.
Junior Alexis Achey lives in the University Forest Apartments with
her service dog, Winston, who helps her to manage her Type 1 Diabetes
through his sense of smell, which detects when her blood sugar levels
are out of range.
“He can smell the changes in body chem- istry as the glucose levels
fluctuate,” Achey said. “So when levels are high, it smells really
fruity or sweet, and when low, it smells like nail polish remover or
acetone.”
Winston, a three-month-old black lab, has not yet learned the
paw-to-leg motion, Achey said, which is the official notification that
fully trained service animals use to notify their owners that their
sugar levels are off balance.
“Right now, he basically does anything he can to get my attention,”
she said, “be it whining, jumping or barking.” He also gets the hiccups
when her levels are out of range, Achey said, although she is unsure
why.
Before living with Winston, Achey had to monitor her sugar levels on
her own, she said. Doctors diagnosed Achey’s Type 1 Diabetes when she
was 7 years old.
Since then, she has learned to look out for symptoms of low blood
sugar. “Nor- mally, you get blurry vision, shakiness, sweatiness,
general disorientation,” she said. “You would normally just feel off,”
she said.
When experiencing these symptoms, Achey would test her glucose levels
to con- firm that they were lower than normal, and if they were, she
would eat or drink something sugary. If levels remained low, Achey would
have to rely on glucagon, she said, a drug that injects pure glucose
into the body, usually in the thigh.
But within the last year and a half, she had become unsure when to
take these pre- cautions because she had trouble recognizing the
symptoms. “Since I’ve been diabetic for so long, my blood sugars have
always been on the lower range,” she said, “so as time goes on, I’ve
lost the ability to detect it.”
Failure to recognize these symptoms could result in a seizure, coma
or even death, she said. Now, Winston can detect out of range levels
about a half an hour earlier than the glucose monitors that Achey had
used in the past could.
Because service dogs for diabetes have become popular within the past
two to three years, Achey said that she had never heard of them until
recently. Achey’s research professor, Carol Parish, who raises dogs for
Guiding Eyes for the Blind, told her about the option.
Achey started researching, she said, and found Service Dogs by Warren Retrievers Inc., a company based in Orange, Va.
Achey contacted the company at the be- ginning of February, she said,
and was put on the wait list until she was matched with Winston in
August and received him in September. But before Achey could live with
Winston, he had to go through a training program.
“So the company had him in ‘puppy boot camp’ since he was five weeks
old until 12 weeks old,” she said, “and they just learn basic obedience
and alert, but don’t necessarily learn the smell.” At five weeks, the
dogs are evaluated to see whether they are curious about different
smells. Finally, the dogs go through temperament testing, which helps to
match them with their owners, she said.
The company bases these matches off of personality and lifestyle,
Achey said, which is determined for the dog through training, and for
the owner, through forms similar to roommate applications.
Once matched with Achey, Winston’s training did not end, she said.
When Achey first got Winston, she worked with a company employee to
train him eight hours a day, five days a week. An employee will continue
to help every three months until Winston is two years old, she said.
Service Dogs by Warren Retrievers helps its clients to pay for the
purchase of the dogs and their training, according to the company’s
website. These costs add up to $20,000, Achey said. To raise this money,
Achey has posted her fundraiser on Facebook, selling shot glasses and
beer glasses that read, “In dog beers, I’ve only had one.”
Before she could bring Winston to campus, Achey had to contact the
housing office because of university regulations prohibiting animals
from living on campus. After applying for housing, she was assigned to a
room in North Court, Achey said, until mid-summer when she was notified
that a reserved handicapped apartment was available.
Achey is the first student to live with a service animal on the
University of Richmond campus, she said. “There was a request several
years ago from a potential first year student,” Joan Lachowski, director
of undergraduate housing, said. “It would have been approved if he
chose to come to the university.”
The university has a policy permitting students with disabilities to
live with a service dog in on-campus housing, Lachowski said. But in the
future, all specific requests for service animals would have to be
approved based on university policy and guidelines provided by the
Americans with Disabilities Act, she said.
Since Achey has been granted this permission, she said that her daily
routine at school has changed. “I have to leave, on average, a half an
hour earlier for class than I normally would have,” she said, “to let
him go to the bathroom if he needs to and because so many people stop
him along the way.”
Attention from multiple people can create a problem for Winston.
“Winston is on duty 24/7, so work and play are a lot more integrative,”
Achey said. “While he’s playing, he still has to pay attention to me. As
long as I tell him to sit down, people can pet him, but it’s ideal to
have only one person at a time.”
Winston stays with Achey in the classroom, as well. Some of Achey’s,
physics and chemistry teachers voiced concern about having Winston in
the wet labs, Achey said. To avoid any problems, Winston wears safety
booties, and once he is older, he will wear goggles, or “doggles,” as
Achey called them.
Although unsure whether she wants to have a service dog for the rest
of her life, Achey said that Winston’s services had definitely been an
improvement from the glucose monitors that she had relied on in the
past.
Contact reporter Jamie Edelen at jamie.edelen@richmond.edu
