News from Around the Region
Service Animals in New England
Rhode Island
Making a Difference – Puppies and Prison Inmates
How can prison inmates make a difference in the lives of people with disabilities? Give them a puppy? It might seem strange to pair puppies with prison inmates, but that is exactly what is happening at the J.J. Moran Medium Correctional Facility in Cranston, RI. The Prison Pup Partnership Program, run by the National Education for Assistance Dog Service, (NEADS) started in Rhode Island on January 27, 2005 under Director, A.T. Wall. The Prison Pup Partnership Program uses prison inmates to train puppies to be service animals for people with disabilities.
A NEADS trainer comes to the facility every Tuesday for a two hour class for the participating inmates where they learn how to teach their puppies basic obedience and service dog tasks including how to turn light switches on and off, tug doors open, work around wheelchairs, and retrieve items off the floor. Each week the inmate, for homework, practices working on the new lesson during the week with the puppy. It can take up to two years to train a puppy before it is placed with a person with a disability. To date 25 dogs have been trained in the J.J. Moran Correctional facility. Currently there are 5 dogs in the program.
The types of dogs used in the Prison Pup Partnership Program are Labrador Retrievers, Golden Retrievers, Smooth Collies or Standard Poodles. The dogs enter the program anywhere from 8 – 16 weeks old. Each dog is a placed with two inmates, a primary and secondary handler. The handlers are all screened and are usually considered model inmates. In order to expose the puppies to the outside world, the puppies are place with weekend puppy raisers. These weekend puppy raisers, trained in socialization skills by NEADS, are assigned to a puppy for the year they are in the prison program.
The Prison Pup Partnership Program gives the inmates a chance to make a difference and give back to the community. The experience of training the puppies has a positive impact on the inmates and helps them to learn new skills. Additionally, the puppies receive advanced training in half the time as dogs raised in foster homes because of the higher level of training the dogs can receive from the inmates. This benefits not only the dogs that spend less time in the kennel but more importantly, people with disabilities who need the animals.
New Hampshire
She’s a working gal named CeCe. A 3 year old golden-lab mix, CeCe is a service animal whose daily activities can be anything but ordinary.
Sandy, whose Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis has resulted in a walking disability, inability to reach items on the floor and to get up after a fall, received CeCe from NEADS nearly two years ago.
CeCe accompanies her human partner to the market, work, meetings, an occasional restaurant and everywhere in between. (Wearing silk flowers and white scarf, CeCe attended Sandy’s son’s yacht wedding last summer.)
CeCe makes life much easier for Sandy. She picks up and retrieves items, and helps with balance when walking. She nudges accessible door plaques to open doors and can press elevator buttons. At home, she brings the phone when Sandy falls so help can be summoned. At the market, she picks up those low-placed cat food cans so her feline family members can have their favorite meals.
But CeCe’s greatest glory may be being the Seacoast Cat Club’s official mascot. Since Puck, her favorite feline playmate, is a show cat, she attends his cat shows with Sandy. Being the only dog in the show hall doesn’t seem to bother her, in fact, it brings its own rewards. CeCe’s cat show human friends are always anxious to give her plenty of attention. Last year Seacoast Cat Club named her their mascot and she’ll be at their show again this year, filling her roles as mascot, supporting Puck and “spokes dog” for NEADS.
Maine
The Maine Human Rights Commission has gone beyond the standards established by the Americans with Disabilities Act allowing many more individuals to be assisted through the use of service animals.
According to the Americans with Disabilities Act a service animal is “any guide dog, signal dog, or other animal individually trained to provide assistance to an individual with a disability.” The Maine Human Rights Commission, however, has identified a service animal in a much broader sense as an animal either trained or simply prescribed by a physician, psychologist, or psychiatrist for a person with a disability. In Maine, a service animal might be used to guide a person who is blind; balance a person who has difficulty walking; or provide companionship for a person with depression. These are just a few examples, and service animals may be prescribed or trained for many different reasons.
This definition exists for both public accommodations and housing providers. In their Service Animals in Housing and Public Accommodations publication, the Maine Human Rights Commission explains that the regulation further states that a person “should be afforded the same experience on the same terms as other customers or tenants without service animals. This means that the person should not be isolated or removed from the normal usage areas of the housing accommodation or business.”
Massachusetts
Almost 17 years after the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Massachusetts Office on Disability (MOD) routinely addresses issues about service animals and individuals who use them, who still face discrimination because of their use of service animals. MOD finds that businesses still need to be educated on the rights of people using service animals. For example, a recent MOD case involved a wheelchair user who was trying to gain access to a restaurant and was refused to be seated. That case was resolved and the restaurant now displays signage indicating that people and their service animals are welcome in their establishment.
MOD distributes a business card that identifies the state and federal laws that protect people using service animals and states that “People with disabilities who use guide or services dogs can go everywhere.” In addition, MOD has just completed a Power Point presentation on interacting with people who use service animals that will be used in training with the Massachusetts State Police. This presentation will soon be found on the MOD website: www.mass.gov/mod If you or someone you know has faced similar issues regarding service animals, or would like one of the business cards, please call MOD at 617-727-7440.
