Today as I walked to my car with Isaac, after leaving the grocery store, an elderly man called out loudly to me, "That's a fine Seeing Eye dog you got there, ma'am!"
I called back, "Thank you!" and kept walking, got in my car, and drove away.
Did the old man mean "service dog" when he said "Seeing Eye" dog? Or did he assume I was blind? Believe it or not, while to my knowledge no one else has assume I am blind because I have a service dog, many people with service dogs are assumed to be blind by members of the public. People make comments about their visual impairment even as they do things like work crossword puzzles, browse in bookstores, and get behind the wheels of their cars. To many people, a service dog is still a symbol of visual impairment.
One person told me how she was taking a city bus with her service dog and happened to be sitting next to a mother and a little girl. The mother was doing a book of crossword puzzles and the person with the service dog was watching because she likes crossword puzzles. The mother was stuck on one answer and the woman with the dog told her what the answer was. Then the little girl asked why the woman had a dog with her and her mother said, "She's blind and the dog helps her." I don't know how the mother thought the blind woman was able to look at her crossword puzzle and figure out the answer!
Another person told me how she was in the grocery store one day with her service dog, reading the labels on some packages, when a little girl asked her mother why that woman had a dog in the grocery store. The mother replied, "She's blind and the dog helps her." The little girl reasonably pointed out, "But Mommy, she's reading those boxes!" The mother explained, "That's because she has her dog to help her." Um.... a guide dog that can read labels?
Service dogs that guide blind people are referred to as guide dogs, by the way. "Seeing Eye" dogs are guide dogs from a specific program; it's like a brand name. Some people refer to any guide dog as a Seeing Eye dog, but that's like the way some people refer to any disposable tissue as a Kleenex or any adhesive bandage as a Band-aid.
No comments:
Post a Comment