Service Animals - Medical Service

Animals that provide for the physical and mental well-being of humans are perhaps the most admired of all working animals. They guide, aid, assist, and comfort people with all kinds of physical and mental disabilities, impairments, and problems.

Aiding the Physically Impaired

Many people troubled with physical impairments rely on trained dogs to improve their quality of life. Assistance Dogs International, Inc. (ADII), is a coalition of nonprofit organizations that train and place assistance dogs. According to ADII, assistance animals fall into three broad categories:

• Guide animals for the blind and visually impaired
• Hearing animals for the deaf and hearing impaired
• Assistance animals for those with other physical or disabilities

Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), service animals must be allowed access to all facilities and transportation vehicles that are open to the public. This means that service animals and their partners must be permitted to enter stores, restaurants, public transportation, airplanes and trains, and other businesses. A service animal is defined as any animal "individually trained to work or perform tasks for an individual with a disability."

Many organizations that train service animals recommend that the animals wear colorful vests that identify them as service animals. These vests may display in large letters "Service Animal" or "Working Animal" and "Do Not Pet." Several companies sell such vests, as well as identifying patches and bandanas, for guide animals.

HELP FOR THE BLIND OR VISUALLY IMPAIRED.

Guide dogs have been trained to assist blind people for nearly two centuries. In 1819 Johann Klein founded a training institute in Vienna, Austria. Although Klein wrote about his work, it received little notice for another century. Following World War I, German doctors established the first known training school for guide dogs to assist soldiers blinded during the war. During the 1920s, a wealthy American woman named Dorothy Eustis wrote a magazine article, "The Seeing Eye," about the German school for the Saturday Evening Post. Eustis was a dog trainer at the time, working in Switzerland.

A blind American man named Morris Frank heard about the guide dogs and asked Eustis to train one for him. In exchange he promised to start a training school in the United States. Frank and his trained dog Buddy, a German shepherd, became the first guide dog team in the United States. Frank's school, the Seeing Eye, was founded in Morristown, New Jersey, in 1929 and was still in operation in 2005. According to the school's Web site, it has trained and placed more than 12,000 guide dogs for the blind throughout its history.

The school breeds its own German shepherds, Labrador retrievers, and golden retrievers. Puppies are raised by volunteer foster families until they are eighteen months old. At that time, the dogs return to the school to attend a four-month training program conducted by certified trainers. Then the dogs are matched up with blind owners, and both undergo a twenty-seven-day training regimen.

The dogs learn to follow directional commands from their owners, such as "forward," "left," and "right." The dogs are taught to disobey a command if doing so would lead the blind person into danger. Blind people with guide dogs say that well-meaning sighted people sometimes interfere with their activities by distracting and petting the dogs or pulling on their harnesses. Figure 8.8 shows a guide dog at work with its owner. According to the Seeing Eye, guide dogs for the blind typically work for seven to eight years and are then adopted as pets by their owners or others.

Another famous training program is called Guide Dogs for the Blind. It was founded in California in 1942 with the primary purpose of training guide dogs for veterans blinded during World War II (1939–45). As of 2005, the organization had large campuses in California and Oregon. One of its graduates became famous following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001—a guide dog named Roselle led a blind man named Michael Hingson FIGURE 8.8
A golden retriever guides a visually impaired woman across the street. Photograph by Peter Skinner/Science Source/Photo Researchers, Inc. Reproduced by permission. down seventy-eight floors to safety after the World Trade Center was hit.

Guide Dog Users, Inc. (GDUI), is an affiliate of the American Council of the Blind. The organization reports increasing problems with attacks on guide dogs by aggressive dogs while walking on city streets. It wants state laws enacted that will protect blind people and their guide dogs from any harassment or obstruction. In December 2001 GDUI published the booklet A State Legislator's Handbook on Guide Dog Protection, which describes attacks on guide dogs and their devastating physical, emotional, and financial consequences. GDUI estimates that it costs up to $60,000 to properly train a guide dog team.

Dogs are not the only animals that guide the blind. In 1999 a retired horse trainer, Janet Burleson, established the Guide Horse Foundation in Kittrell, North Carolina, to train miniature horses to do this work. Miniature (or pygmy) horses stand about two feet tall and are known for their calm and intelligent nature. Burleson started the foundation after successfully teaching her own miniature horse to guide a blind woman around a busy shopping mall.

Guide horses have several advantages over guide dogs. First, they live much longer—an average of thirty to forty years, more than twice the average life span of a dog. This longevity appeals to many blind people who want to keep the same guide animal for many years because of the close bond that forms between them. Guide horses are also more suitable for people who are allergic to or afraid of dogs. The training of guide horses is reportedly much less expensive than that of guide dogs.

HELP FOR THE DEAF OR HEARING IMPAIRED.

Hearing dogs are specially trained to alert their deaf or hard-of-hearing owners to particular noises, such as a doorbell, knock at the door, oven timer, crying baby, alarm clock, or smoke alarm. When the dogs hear these noises, they make physical contact with their owners and lead them to the source of the noise. Hearing dogs are usually small- to medium-sized mixed breeds. The nonprofit group Dogs for the Deaf, Inc., of Central Point, Oregon, reported on its Web site in 2005 that it has rescued, trained, and placed approximately 600 shelter dogs to work as hearing guides.

HELP FOR OTHER PHYSICAL CONDITIONS.

Service dogs do a variety of tasks for people with debilitating conditions, such as paralysis, lameness, epilepsy, or Parkinson's disease. The dogs are trained to pick up dropped items, fetch objects (such as a phone), pull wheelchairs, open and close doors, turn light switches on and off, and perform other tasks as needed. They can even assist people who are unsteady on their feet by providing a means of support and balance. Some service dogs are trained to summon help if their partner needs it. The most common types of service dogs are Labrador retrievers and golden retrievers, but many training organizations use mixed-breed dogs rescued from animal shelters.

"Seizure alert dogs" are trained to identify signs—generally undetectable to humans—that their human companion is going to have a seizure. Some dogs have demonstrated an ability to predict when a person is going to have a seizure up to an hour before it happens. No one knows exactly how these dogs know when a person is going to have a seizure, but some scientists speculate that the dogs may be aware of certain physical or behavioral changes such as dilated pupils or slight changes in skin color or facial expressions that occur. The dog may be trained to remain with the person throughout the seizure, sometimes lying on top of them to steady them and prevent injury, and helping them up afterward.

The organization Independence Dogs, Inc., in Chadd's Ford, Pennsylvania, provides service dogs to patients with Parkinson's disease. The dogs are specially trained to nudge walking patients who suddenly freeze because they forget they are moving. The dogs also act as a safety crutch in case a patient stumbles and begins to fall.

Some service dogs are trained specifically to assist children with disabilities. Loving Paws Assistance Dogs is a nonprofit organization based in Santa Rosa, California. The group trains service dogs for children with spinal cord injuries, muscular dystrophy, spina bifida, cerebral palsy, and other disabling conditions. According to estimates on the organization's Web site in 2005, training of a service dog can cost in excess of $30,000.

Other animals beside dogs also work as service animals. The organization Helping Hands in Boston, Massachusetts, trains capuchin monkeys to assist quadriplegic people with their daily activities. Capuchin monkeys are more commonly known as "organ grinder" monkeys. They are small, intelligent animals with limber hands and friendly dispositions. They assist paralyzed people by fetching items, retrieving things that are dropped, and turning lights on and off. Like all service animals, the monkeys also provide much-needed companionship to their human partners.

NOT ALL CASES ARE SUCCESSFUL.

Although the vast majority of service animals are greatly appreciated for their work, there have been cases of abuse. In February 2002 a blind man in Pennsylvania was charged with brutally killing his guide dog, Inky. The man allegedly went into a rage while intoxicated and kicked the dog to death. He was sentenced to up to twenty-three months in prison and ordered to pay $1,000 to a guide dog association. Animal welfarists use the case to point out that service animals and their human partners must be carefully screened and monitored to ensure that a good match is made and that the animals will be cared for properly.

One controversial issue associated with guide dogs is the use of breeding programs to produce them. Many organizations and training schools rescue dogs from pounds and animal shelters. This provides good homes for dogs that might otherwise be euthanized. Animal welfarists are critical of schools that breed their own dogs because there are already so many unwanted dogs in the country. However, some schools complain that the supply of suitable pound and shelter dogs is not sufficient to meet their needs. Paws with a Cause is an organization based in Wayland, Mississippi, that trains service animals. The group announced in the early 2000s that it planned to concentrate on using specially bred dogs rather than shelter dogs for its training program. On its Web site in 2005, the organization presented statistics showing that few shelter dogs meet its criteria for age, temperament, and medical condition. The failure rate for shelter dogs is also higher (87.5%) than it is for specially bred dogs (25%). Paws with a Cause defends its decision by reminding people that its primary goal is helping people, not rescuing dogs. The group says that it works hard to find alternative jobs and homes for the dogs that fail its program. Many dogs who do not succeed as service animals are adopted by the volunteer families that raised them.

Mental and Physical Therapy

Another medical service that animals provide is therapeutic rather than utilitarian. Therapy animals provide emotional support or assist in rehabilitation activities. For example, therapy animals can comfort people undergoing psychological counseling. Many organizations working with abused children use therapy dogs in their programs. Petting and hugging the dogs relaxes the children and allows them to open up to counselors. Similar programs are used to calm children suffering from autism.

Therapy animals also visit hospitals, orphanages, and nursing homes to cheer people who may be lonely or depressed. Dogs are the most common therapy animals. Only gentle and social dogs with very good dispositions are used in this work. They must go through rigorous training and receive Canine Good Citizenship certification. The human participants are screened beforehand to ensure that they like animals and find them comforting.

Therapy animals also participate in physical rehabilitation programs, such as hippotherapy, or horse-assisted therapy. The word hippotherapy is derived from the Greek word hippos, meaning horse. At the J. F. Shea Therapeutic Riding Center in San Juan Capistrano, California, people disabled by strokes or injuries ride horses as part of their rehabilitation. Doctors have believed for some time that horseback riding is beneficial to people who must relearn to walk. As a horse strolls, a rider's hips are gently swiveled back and forth. This causes the rider's legs to swing back and forth in a motion that mimics walking. At the same time, the rider works to keep the upper body centered and facing forward. Riding a horse works nearly every muscle in the human body. Over time, the movement rebuilds the muscle strength, coordination, and balance required for walking. Hippotherapy is highly effective for children and adults suffering from a variety of muscular and neurological problems.

Because therapy animals are not individually trained to assist specific individuals, they are not considered service animals under the ADA. Therefore, they are not guaranteed the public access rights under U.S. law that service animals are.

Medical Detection

The idea of using animals in medical detection received credibility following the publication of a 1989 article in the Lancet, a distinguished British medical journal. The article, "Sniffer Dogs in the Melanoma Clinic," described a patient who had sought medical help about a worrisome mole on her leg. The woman reported that her dog constantly sniffed at the mole and seemed very interested in it. Doctors discovered that the mole was cancerous and removed it. Similar stories have been reported by other dermatologists. Doctors speculate that dogs may be able to smell some unique scent emitted by cancerous skin cells.

In early 2004 researchers at Amersham Hospital in England performed a study to test the ability of six dogs to detect by smell the presence of cancerous cells in urine samples. The dogs were tested with urine from healthy people, people diagnosed with bladder cancer, and people diagnosed with other illnesses. As a group, the dogs successfully identified cancerous urine 41% of the time. This is well above the 14% success rate researchers expected from chance alone. The two best performing dogs were cocker spaniels. They were correct 56% of the time.

In December 2004 researchers at Scripps Clinic in San Diego, California, announced plans to conduct the first double-blind, peer-reviewed study of dogs' capability to detect cancerous cells in urine samples. Twelve dogs of various breeds will be used in the study. The researchers believe that a chemical with a distinctive smell may be present in the urine of cancer sufferers. If dogs could be trained to alert doctors to samples with that smell, it might be a useful screening tool. If it is found that cancerous cells do emit unique scents, the information could be used to construct electronic "noses" for use in diagnosing cancer.