Mutt-ernity Ward

[Joe V]

It's been said, the world is going to the dogs. But, in some locations, our canine friends ARE allowed in the Delivery Room. Under the Americans With Disabilities Act, trained "Service Animals" are allowed to accompany people to many business places, including medical practices and hospitals. How about your hospital? Have you seen Service Animals accompanying patients throughout the hospital? Are they allowed in the Delivery Room? Does your hospital provide training on handling these situations?

Thank you Phil-on-a-bike for the winning caption. You won $100!

[bitter_betsy, BSN]

I'm all for service dogs - I had one until she passed. She taught me more about myself than I would have ever learned on my own and I'm so thankful for her. I miss her madly every day.

In my job now I fight with people all the time. I work in a hotel and they think that ESD are SD and they aren't and we don't allow anything except Service Dogs. You can't bring your "pet" and expect us to let it in because you have "papers" or put a vest on it. Service Dogs don't require a vest or papers. Sometimes I wish we were a little more like Canada were you needed a special license for a service dog. It would stop all this $99 paper nonsense and give papers to those who need them and take it from those who don't.

I think the biggest issue now is people are improperly educated. They are led to believe that their dogs can go anywhere when they can't. Did you see the peacock issue? https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/31/united-refused-to-let-an-emotional-support-peacock-board-plane.html

Service Dogs in general do not leave their owners side - there are exceptions. If your dog is trained for anxiety attacks and you go to the dentist - you really don't want your dog trying to climb into your lap and calm you down when the dentist is trying to extract a tooth or two. However, because the dog is generally with you almost all the time - your absence is not good for the dog either. So if someone has been admitted to the hospital, it may be necessary for the heath of the dog to assure them that their owner is ok as well. Not sure of the right way to do this as I didn't have to worry about it.... but I would surely worry about my dog walking through all that crap on the floor. I'd have to put rain boots on them or something... just yuck.

Properly trained service dogs are absolutely incredible. Its fascinating to watch them (and hard not to stare when they are working). I once watched a Vet walk into a building. The man stopped but his dog took 2 steps in front of him - literally looked around everywhere - stepped backwards and sat down and then looked up at his owner and waited for him to proceed. Gave me chills.

[kbrn2002, ADN, RN]

Not any type of health care setting so this is a little off topic. An acquaintance of mine played the "emotional support animal" card to be able to bring her dog into an apartment that doesn't allow pets. This dog is adorable, but not well trained at all. He's never been properly potty trained so I expect any carpeting in that apartment will be destroyed. He occasionally gets yappy for no good reason. I can't imagine his presence in an apartment building is appreciated by the landlord or the other tenants. The poor property owner is now stuck as the dog is a registered support animal and I can pretty much guarantee that the damage this dog does to the flooring will be above and beyond any money collected as a security deposit. I am not that familiar with laws governing these emotional support animals, but it doesn't strike me as fair that they are allowed to destroy property with little recourse.