Photo by Seth Harrison
Ok dog trainers what do you make of this article about a little kid named Anthony Spataro who tried to go to school with his dog named Dash who is supposed to be trained to detect Anthony’s glucose levels.
Apparently Jerilynne Fierstein from the Paideia school in Yonkers, NY said: The puppy is not a service dog under the existing service animals standards and guidelines. Dash is too young to have received the necessary training to detect glucose levels.
Well I’m no dog expert so I’m unable to say if this dog is trained right or not but what gets me is that this women says the dog is too young to be trained. So tell me how old dose a dog need to be before you can say it’s trained to perform its job?
I feel bad for the kid who was only trying to go to school with his companion by his side.
Read the article by Ernie Garcia here.
There is no law that says your dog has to be a certain age to do its job, just that it can do 3 tasks to mitigate your disability. The school district already made up its mind not to allow the dog in their school, regardless of the laws. It's a shame, because this puppy has already done some amazing alerts on his boy and is extremely well-mannered and well-behaved. He has passed his Canine Good Citizen, STARS puppy and public access tests, as well. What more can the school demand to prove he's a service dog? Legally, nothing, but still they try. I agree that it's a shame that Anthony is going through this.
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