Magic Kingdom...not so magical.

[sfbntpc]

My daughter (9) uses a service dog in her everyday life. She has epilepsy and anxiety (which can trigger her seizures). Our dog Nala alerts us if she is having a seizure and just seems to know when her anxiety is high. We have done Disney 2 times with out bringing Nala. She was still young and we did not want to stress her out.

We are going in March and are still trying to decide if Nala is coming with us or not this time. She has been in very crowed areas and does great so I'm not worried about her being over worked. Our only thought for bringing her is that this will be the first trip where we do not do a stroller as Layla is to big for a stroller. When we had the stroller, she was able to just sit and hang by herself to decompress. We have looked at getting a "special needs" stroller that would work for her size. Having Nala would just make her more comfortable without her stroller....it's a toss up for us!

There is zero question that Nala is a service dog. She does not get distracted by other people around her, she uses the bathroom on comand, she doesn't flinch when people come up and per her without permission (although not many people do as she is a German Shepard), she is 100% focused on Layla until her release word is given. She is a love and has been such a blessing to our family. I had to see people bending the rules to suit their wants.

That is amazing! My family was definitely in awe of the working dogs and how focused they were. I definitely hope my dog turns out the same way! My doctor actually said that she doesn’t know we the medical community hasn’t invested in more research to determine the benefits of the dogs olfactory system. I can’t remember the numbers compared to humans but it wowed me.

 

[mlee10]

@sfbntpc she is amazing! I have pretty high anxiety myself and she will at times start nudging me before I even realize I'm having a panic attack. She just continues to learn and grow. It's sad that it is so expensive to get the dogs. I know it takes a lot to train them. We were lucky to have family and friends step up to help us!

 

[ELG13]

On our last trip I was fully prepared for an encounter with an emotional support animal but we didn't have any luckily. We did see service animals and it absolutely does not take a medical professional to spot them. We deal with people bringing emotional support animals into our office quite frequently and some of those owners are just looking for a law suit.
As far as the state of things, I'm hoping that the entrance is only the beginning. Some of the older features I don't mind but I do think taking a little time from building out, and adding a little time to updates and refurbishments would be nice. The bathrooms for example....some of those are in serious need of updates.

 

[JoeCamel]

In what way??? I’m actually new to all this stuff and I would be perfectly fine with providing documentation. I will say I got aggravated one day in a certain chain store because I left my dog in the car because their policy says no dogs and when we walked in someone had a dog in a doggie stroller and no one said anything to the couple. We have been trying to get her used to any situations, but because she isn’t even in training yet, I follow the rules of each establishment

Redirecting…

www.ada.gov

 

[Jumpr71]

This thing with the dogs is getting out of hand.

I live in the Deep South of the US and we have dogs everywhere. People bring them to work in some cases but they bring them to construction type businesses, auto shops, motorcycle shops, etc. Many times they live at the business because they are the night time security. I don't even give it a second thought that there is a dog at one of these places.

We had incident not log ago where a man who was blind and tried to attend church with his seeing eye dog. The church told him no dogs because they seem to have problems with "emotional support dogs" etc. Not because the population in general isn't use to dogs it's a matter of there is a time and place for everything. Well the Press had a field day with this, it was on every news channel, newspaper. Minister back pedaled as fast as possible and I'm not sure he even made the decision that day but I'm sure he was the person who made the policy. The man was flat out blind needing that dog to lead him around. That is a true service dog not what people are calling service dogs now.

Lowcountry church to welcome blind man, service dog after not letting dog in

The pastor says as of this weekend, the church is removing the No Service Dogs barrier, and people with service dogs will be welcomed.

www.wtoc.com

Church is a big deal around here so it was a major incident.

A “true service dog” is any dog trained for a specific task that aids a disabled person. Guide dogs for blind folks is one example of a “true service dog”. There are several more examples as well.

 

[Jumpr71]

In what way??? I’m actually new to all this stuff and I would be perfectly fine with providing documentation. I will say I got aggravated one day in a certain chain store because I left my dog in the car because their policy says no dogs and when we walked in someone had a dog in a doggie stroller and no one said anything to the couple. We have been trying to get her used to any situations, but because she isn’t even in training yet, I follow the rules of each establishment

A service dog is quite a bit more than just a well behaved/trained animal.

 

[Jumpr71]

I know that but people are abusing the definition. I know what you will say, you don't know peoples disability it might not be seen etc. etc. Blah blah blah. I've been in the business world for a long time and I have dealt with many twisted people. You have to realize there are many many people who are BS artists or just straight up mentally disturbed. You can't let them set the agenda, personally I can BS my way into many things that I shouldn't be able too. I have also played the game where I'm going to do this, how are you going to stop me. Why that works is because the sheep doesn't try to stop the wolf.

Emotional support animal? You won't like my rant on that.

Well you certainly seem to be in the know regarding service dogs and esa’s.