Those vest-wearing canines around Athens serve an important purpose for people with disabilities.
Two organizations at Ohio University focus on educating students, professors and business owners on the rights of and the proper way to interact with service dogs while also training service dogs personally.
“They’re becoming a more mainstream way of dealing with (physical and mental) illness,” Elizabeth Potter, the president of Service Dogs on Campus, said.
Potter, a senior studying arts management, said there’s a clear difference between psychiatric service dogs and emotional support animals. Dogs from these two categories help their owners with mental illness, but emotional support animals don’t perform direct tasks.
“Since it’s becoming more common to see service dogs, you need to know how to interact with them so the person who has the service dog doesn’t get hurt,” Potter said.
Service Dogs on Campus is a new group on campus meant to advocate for students who have service dogs and raise awareness for the proper way to interact with a working team of handlers and their service dog.
“The idea for the club started several years ago when I had a negative experience on OU’s campus about me and Blue, (my service dog),” Potter said. “I just realized how many people, even within staff positions on campus, had no idea how to interact with a service dog in a classroom setting.”
One goal for Service Dogs on Campus is to get professionals with disabilities, including comedian Drew Lynch, who has a stutter and uses a service dog, to speak on campus. Potter said it would inspire students with•disabilities to see successful people who have overcome similar obstacles.
Service Dogs on Campus had a table at the Student Involvement Fair in August and 35 people signed up, but not many have been able to make meetings. Potter said she’s trying to organize a new time for those who are still interested in the club’s mission.
The student club is the second group on campus that has members who help train service dogs. 4 Paws for Ability is another club on campus that has been active in the field.
Maria Martin, the president of 4 Paws for Ability and a senior studying communication, said the organization has service dogs in training on OU and 12 other college campuses in Ohio and surrounding states, she said. Fosters must live within three hours of Xenia, Ohio and are trained for “autism assistance, seizure alert, diabetic alert and mobility assistance.”
Jessica Hemmelgarn, the vice president of 4 Paws for Ability and a sophomore studying biological sciences, said potential service dogs are usually given to student when they’re about five months old. When the service dogs are about a year old, they return to a 4 Paws facility to evaluate whether they can move onto learning tasks. If they aren’t fit to be a working dog, they are adopted by loving owners to be pets.
“Most dogs can be used as a service dog,” she said. “But they wanna make sure that the (breed) is perceived by the public.”
Potter said Athens business owners have acted unwelcoming toward her by tracking her movement as soon as she enters their store.
“Any time you walk into a business, you’re pretty much automatically challenged because of the amount of fake service dogs that are out there,” she said.
Unqualified service dogs have also become a concern, Hemmelgarn said, because it’s too easy for people to buy a service dog vest online and claim their pet has to be near them at all times.
“If there are service dogs that are not well-trained or not well-behaved, they can ruin it for the child that really needs their service dog,” she said.
