Having a disability, having a service dog?

Deciding to have a service dog or not

 

A little over a year ago Veronica and I decided to raise a service dog. Partially we made this decision because we didn't feel we could make the 10 to 15 year commitment, financially, lifestyle or otherwise, that you're looking at when you own a dog.

Kenzie spends most of her time with me. As you may know, I do have a disability. However, it never occurred to us that I would benefit from having a service dog and we had no intention of training her for me. West Coast Teams trains mobility assistance dogs. Having a disability and using a scooter just allowed mobility training to happen all the time.

I would not have described myself as needing a mobility assistance dog. I can pull off my own socks and jacket. I can get the phone or the remote. I can reach out and touch the button to cross the street or open a door or the elevator. I can bend down to pick things up. I can open the fridge or turn on the light. Of course many of these things mean getting out of my scooter if I'm using it. But I can do that.

In terms of mobility assistance, with fibromyalgia, there are always worse days and then these things are very helpful. Also, any energy saved is energy I can use for other things.  If I don’t have to get out of my scooter because Kenzie will take care of whatever it is, maybe I have the energy left to do something else, something important to me.

 But mostly I can and do these things myself.

BUT THEN about six months ago we realized that although I don't feel a lot better I am functioning at a higher level than I was before we got Kenzie. I leave the house more, I spend more time outside, I see and speak to more people.  There is no quantitative medical test to show I have a disability, how severe it is, or how it is affecting my life.  Many of my symptoms are subjective.  But all of the things Kenzie helps me with are concrete, the type of measures that doctors, insurance companies and government offices like. So we started to think about whether I would benefit from having a service dog, from keeping Kenzie after her training was complete.  Maybe having it be the concrete factors also made it easier for me to accept the difference as legitimate, too.

I didn't tell very many people about this possibility, that I may keep Kenzie or have a service dog. Of course months ago when I realized that maybe it was a good thing for me, it was much easier to avoid a decision. Kenzie's behavior still needed a lot of work. My rationale was I couldn't tell how well we would fit together until I saw how Kenzie was closer to the end of her training. While she isn't completely trained now she has calmed down a lot and the end is in sight.

In the meantime I have spent a lot of time thinking and discussing with V why or how Kenzie helps me. Being at home with me she helps prevent isolation. Being outside the home with me she does the same thing. Strangers talk to each other when one of them has a dog. Eventually the strangers become friends. I make better decisions to take care of myself because I will need to take care of Kenzie. She interrupts me if I am focusing too much on an activity and overdoing it. She prompts me to do things that are good for me like sleep or spend time outside.  Somehow it is easier to make decisions that are good for her and just happen to also be good for me, than it is to make those decisions just for my own good.

It's hard to describe how having Kenzie helps me at an appointment or meeting, in a restaurant or at a social event. Of course even these events are tiring and having her with me keeps me from over doing it by giving me a reminder and great excuse for leaving. She can also provide an excuse in other ways, when it is easier to give her as a reason than to give my health as the reason for a decision. She gives me a focus and something to pay attention to rather than getting stressed about something or focusing on my physical condition.  Sometimes if I am feeling anxious about something we are going to do to, thinking of having Kenzie with me lessens my anxiety.

 

So why not to have a service dog?

Months ago I had a conversation with a person with a service dog for mental health, specifically anxiety. It is an invisible disability just as mine is when I'm not in my scooter. Because I am relatively young and look relatively healthy, it doesn’t occur to most people that I have health issues that interfere with daily life.  While it it is rude to ask somebody, often a stranger, "well, what's wrong with you?" Having a service dog and an invisible disability gets you this question quite often. Without your service dog (or scooter) you can easily avoid the whole conversation or choose to disclose or not disclose it. This is harder to do when more people talk to you with the service dog and then start asking questions.

Recently I have realized that another part of my reluctance to accept a service dog permanently has to do with both how I think I am perceived and what I think I deserve. Sometimes this is related to my appearance and having an invisible disability while other times it is in comparison to others. For instance, I often feel bad about taking an accessible parking spot when an elderly person might need it.  Or zooming past an elderly person when I am on my scooter and they are making very slow (probably painful) progress with a cane or a walker.  In my head it seems to be a question of how disabled I am and therefore how much consideration I deserve. But sometimes I am uncomfortable because of how disabled I think I am perceived to be.  This is complicated; hard to talk about and hard to explain.

It took me a really long time to accept the word disability.  Partly I got used to it as it is applied to other people in my volunteer life. Even when I did start using it as it applied to myself, I explained it in my own head that it was just simpler, a quicker, easier label to use in conversation than to explain what my health and my life are actually like.  I still don’t think of myself as disabled or having a disability, and I don’t necessarily think that’s a problem.  I am a just a person, an individual, and each individual’s life is different.   Sweeping labels highlight a small similarity in a group and ignore huge differences.

It also took me a long time to accept using a wheelchair or scooter.  I spent years rarely walking anywhere or getting any exercise and therefore rarely leaving the house, especially alone, because walking causes me so much pain and that pain takes away the enjoyment  from whatever I am doing.  The backlash of pain and fatigue in my body would last for a week or more.  And throughout all of this I was cranky and emotional.  Partly I thought this would end and I could have all of those parts of my life back – everything outside of my house, I guess.  But it never did and eventually I came to realize that the only way I was going to get outside my house was to use a mobility device.  It was an incredible feeling of freedom to be ‘released’.  But only after I got over a bunch of stuff.  Now, because I use my scooter, I not only get out and do things, but when I DO need to walk a bit I can tolerate it better and I recover quicker.

But still, there are some people for whom a service dog literally means they can live by themselves or leave the house by themselves. That is not me so I am struggling with whether it would be selfish to keep a fully trained service dog when it could help somebody else whose situation is so much more difficult than mine.  In my head, I am not THAT disabled.  I some ways this still amuses me that I can think this way after being off of work for this disability for more than 10 years, with no end in sight.

And then of course there is the public perception.   If I have a service dog, I must be that disabled.

V is not generally a glass half-full kind of person. However, when we talked about this she pointed out that turning this aspect around means legitimizing. When I need accommodation due to my illness I have a service dog therefore I must be that disabled and Kenzie legitimizes my request and my need.

The politically correct answer, if somebody says they have a disability that you can't see, is to simply accept the statement.  If the person wants to tell you more about their condition, they will. However, there are still a lot of times when people who see me as a reasonably young and capable looking individual question whether I have a disability. Would having a service dog make them less likely to question? I'm not really sure.  And would this make a difference anyway, anywhere except for in my own head?

I know all the responses to my concerns about how disabled I am or I am perceived to be or what I deserve.  I know the logic.  But I also know from my emotional reactions to situations that somewhere in my heart I still don’t believe them all the time.

The "loosest" description I have seen of who could use a service dog is anyone who's health, well-being and independence would be increased by a service dog. (Another consideration of course is whether they can care for and handle a service dog.)  By that first definition, since I am functioning more highly, especially in a number of categories that are considered especially healthy, maybe I should keep Kenzie. Maybe I should have a service dog.

A lot of the reasons not to have any dog, the resons why V and I decided to foster a service dog instead, apply to not having a fully trained service dog as well: the commitment, the cost, the lifestyle changes.

It is a tough decision to make.