Archive For The “Service Animals” Category
This is a story that made waves in the service dog and pet lovers community last month: A cab driver in Colorado was called to pick up a blind passenger accompanied by a seeing-eye service dog. The cab driver claimed that he was allergic to dogs and told the passenger to put the dog in [...]
Over the past year, I have devoted a substantial amount of time talking about service animals. I have discussed how dogs, miniature horses, and monkeys can be trained to become service animals. I have also discussed badly behaved ‘service animals’ — people who claim to have legitimate disabilities and pawn their untrained companion pets as [...]
It isn’t enough to know the federal laws that protect the right of persons with disabilities to be accompanied by their service animals. Good attorneys and advocates need to be intimately familiar with state law as well. Often, state law may offer additional protections and benefits than federal law provides. One of the best sources [...]
The value that individuals with disabilities derive from service animals is immeasurable. But the concept of “immeasurability” is not a quantifiable term. From a legal perspective, it is important to measure loss of life and damage to property into some quantifiable term and explain how damages can be reasonably measured. This blog post is concerned [...]
Recently, someone who trains service dogs for the blind booked a plane flight to visit family. She wanted to take the dog with her on the plane. Doing so would be an excellent experience for any service dog in training. When she called the airport to see if she could change her seat to sit [...]
In a previous blog article (“Are IEPs Necessary for Service Animals?“), I argued that a child with a disability does not need an Individualized Educational Plan (“IEP”) in order to bring a service dog to school. At the time I wrote and published that article, there was an Illinois state case pending which involved a [...]
There is a well known saying: “Nothing is certain but death and taxes.” Let’s face it, no one likes to think about their own mortality. But those of us who have family and pets should consider having a will drawn up and/or a trust established to ensure that our family and pets are taken care [...]
Now that 2009 has come and gone, I look through my files of cases and try to determine the most interesting service animal case I’ve come across this year. Cases involving service animals in the schools or various exotic creatures as service animals such as monkeys are certainly interesting; but, in my view, nothing comes [...]
Most of us who have paid attention to the placemats on the table in a Chinese restaurant will recall that the Chinese calendar is linked to certain zodiac signs which are represented by animals: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, ram, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig. The year 2009 is the year of the [...]
Not too long ago, a newspaper article caught my eye. A Florida judge and a black Labrador posed for the camera in the judge’s chambers. The title of the article read: Jacksonville judge wants dogs used in justice system. I’m a lawyer, I love animals, and so, of course, I’m going to continue reading. I [...]
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