August 19, 2012
Since the Law Concerning Assistance Dogs for the Disabled to promote the
use of the service dog which helps a person with disability was
enforced, it has been ten years this year.
The assistance dog law has imposed a duty of acceptance of an assistance
dog upon a public facility, a public transportation facility and
commercial establishment, a restaurant, etc. The training system of a
high quality assistance dog is also mentioned in the law.
After it was issued, more persons, accompanied by the dog, came to enjoy going out or dining out in a restaurant or a hotel.
However, one thing is worrisome, that is, some cases are seen that the
person with the service dog is still declined to enter the public space.
The Japanese Partner Dog Users Group asked ten members about such an
experience. They answered that they encountered refusal 25 times in one
year and a half since 2009. The reasons why they were declined were:
"Your dog disturbs our customers," "There is a health top problem," etc.
Especially, a hearing dog is mostly a small dog and mixed breeds, and is
not easily distinguish from a general pet. Even if it becomes
troublesome to other visitors, the Deaf users may be unable to explain
well about why they need a hearing dog.
The assistance dog is well trained so that it may not hurt people or
disturb them. The government should direct a public space or a store
again in order to prevent them from refusing the person and the service
dog.
While there are 1,143 assistance dogs, the number of a seeing eye dog
dominates 90 percent (1,043), there are 62 partner dogs and only 38
hearing dogs.
It is because either a partner dog or a hearing dog is not fully known
by other person with disability compared with a seeing eye dog.
Japanese original article:
http://www.hokkaido-np.co.jp/news/editorial/397408.html
