Service Animals

Today was a big day for non-canine service animal news, which I keep tabs on here as part of ongoing follow up to my New York Times Magazine article, Creature Comforts, about the use of non-canine service animals (which include ducks, monkeys, horses, goats, and at least one kangaroo).  The biggest news is that a court in Missouri has rejected the discrimination case filed by Debby Rose, who I featured in my story. She was forbidden to bring her Macaque monkey Richard into local businesses, despite the fact that she says he's a service monkey trained to help with her agoraphobia (Richard…

Today, in their segment called "Seeing Eye Horse Shocks Store Patrons," Good Morning America featured a woman riding her full sized "Seeing Eye horse" through the grocery store (pictured left). In doing so, it made one of the most common media mistakes: focusing on the quirk factor (woman riding horse in store!) at the expense of the issues involved.  The result is a classic oversimplification of a complex story that's pretty misleading about the use of horses as service animals:  Most non-canine service animal users are not, in fact, people who ride horses through stores.  As far as I…

Okay, so Culture Dish is now back from it's short down time for mourning (and finishing my massive pre-tenure dossier, which was due yesterday and looked something like this).  Lots of posting to catch up on.   First, this:  After reading my recent NYTimes Magazine story on the use of non-canine service animals and the surrounding political turmoil (plus all the follow up here), two producers contacted me about doing a documentary on the subject. I'm not formally involved in the project, but I've talked to them at length, and their idea seems like a good one.  They're hoping to get in…