Service Dogs In School – POTS Dysautonomia Alert Dog Trainer

WE ARE COMING BACK TO SEATTLE

We will be teaching our medical alert dog class in Seattle April 5th-8th 2018 in Seattle. Registration must be completed by March 8th!

Can My Child Take Their Medical Alert Dog To School With Them?

Amelia from Cincinnati Ohio has our question of the week. Amelia’s daughter had POTS, Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, a form of dysautonomia. She wants to train her own medical alert service dog for dysautonomia and wants to know if she does, will her dog legally be able to go to school with her young child. Amelia doesn’t know what big can of worms she just opened up by asking this simple question. See what our answer is in this weeks Medical Alert Dog Monday video.

So what do you think of our answer? Do you think that parents should have to prepare for a legal battle in order to be able to bring a service dog into school, a right that is guaranteed them by the Americans With Disabilities Act?

POTS / DYSAUTONOMIA ALERT DOG

Matilda is a trained POTS alert dog. She is a Labradoodle from our first Imprinted Puppy Puppy Litter. Find out how you can get a puppy like her to train for your child.

2 Comments

Adrienne March 7, 2018 at 12:18 am

Hi Mary,
As you know we have an awesome Diabetic Alert Dog called Molly Polly (trained through your fabulous online videos) and she has attended school in Australia since May 2015. My girls were only 7 years old when she started attending school with them, so they had a carer and school staff help them through the day with Molly Polly’s ‘management’. We are so happy that Molly Polly can attend school, but the hardest issue we have had is when the school ‘untrains’ her e.g. gives her treats for barking at new people – saying she is protecting the school, but then does not give her treats for alerting. So hypo/hyper alerting at school did decrease and barking at school increased (the barking doesn’t happen at the mall or any other public place). I have and still have to work really hard on the barking – a stress that I really didn’t need. I guess if you are lucky enough to be able to send your child/ren’s service dog to school, you need to be really strict on how the school is to interact with your service dog e.g. no treats for barking, or no removing the service dog for other upset children, or removing as a form of punishment to your child, or crating without permission. Just another point for parents to consider when sending a service dog to school….. especially if your child relies on others (the school) to help them manage their service dog.
Mary McNeight, CPDT-KA, CCS, BGS March 7, 2018 at 12:57 am

This is something Ive never thought about and a great point. Im so sorry you are having to deal with untrained/unreliable staff.