Here are a couple articles I recently read about a woman
with a service horse.
Times Union: Her
Assistant, Her Guide, Her Horse
Fox 23 News: Guide
Horse Draws Quite the Crowd
It’s a miniature horse, and miniature horses are the only
service animals other than dogs offered some protection under the Americans
with Disabilities Act. There’s some
controversy about that. Some business
owners feel that it’s not reasonable to allow horses, miniature or not, into
businesses in order to accommodate people with disabilities. There are numerous concerns.
Horses, even miniature ones, are larger than most service
dogs. They can’t curl up under a table
in a restaurant the way a dog can. They
are taller than most service dogs, so if a person needs the assistance of a
service horse at a salad bar or buffet, for instance, the horse’s head would be
about level with the food, which raises questions about sanitation.
There is some debate about whether or not horses can be
housebroken; the Guide Horse Foundation claims they can go up to six hours
without toileting, about half the maximum time an adult dog can go, but photos
of service horses often show them wearing diapers.
Here is some more information about potential problems with relying
on service horses, provided by the National Federation of the Blind, which does
not favor the use of miniatures horses for the blind.
The Guide Horse
Foundation: Joke or Jeopardy?
Guide horses are said to offer an alternative to blind
people that are allergic to dogs and to blind Muslims that believe dogs are
unclean and therefore are unwilling to work with guide dogs. The Guide Horse Foundation says the
organization wants to offer an alternative for horse lovers. Personally, I don’t understand why horse
lovers can’t use service dogs; I mean, I am a cat lover, but I am not going to
try to train myself a service cat.
While there may be a few advantages of service horses, those
seem outweighed by the many disadvantages, to me.
I'm glad you will be writing both blogs! I enjoy reading about your experiences with getting a service dog and benefitting from your wisdom from having RNY. It's neat that you will be getting paid to offer coaching about gastric bypass - what a neat idea to turn it into a business! I hope you are very successful since you have very good advice, are a great writer, are personable and likeable, and the perfect credentials for it.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Laura! I'm pretty excited about it. At the moment I only have two clients, but I don't want too many clients because I want to be able to give a lot of time and attention to the clients I do have. I want to be able to really get to know my clients and to be honest, I think if I was doing something like this full time, I'd start forgetting who said what or who set what goal, etc. I'd be happy with just five or six clients altogether, I think. It's a great job for me because I really enjoy doing it. It doesn't feel like work, which of course is the best kind of job to have.
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