Mobility options cane vs. dog guide

Recently, there has been a discussion of an incident in Texas regarding a
woman and her guide dog. She fussed over the use of the term "seeing eye"
to describe the dog and got into a tussle with the police when she tried to
correct them. She pointed to the harness and tried to show them a book
which had all of the laws in it. It is questionable whether she showed the
actual ID or not.

It has been said that the ADA does not require these IDs and that they are
required only for guide dogs. I hope I am understanding this correctly but
that could be faulty as that has been known to happen. In any case, this
whole thing has led me to some thoughts. Regarding mobility options. I use
a cane and am quite content with it as I don't have the major hassles that a
dog guide team has, the above story being but one of those hassles.

I call it a hassle. Others might call it a responsibility; but either way,
it is a problem or situation I don't want to deal with. There are other
responsibilities or hassles with using a guide dog. You have to take care
of them, feed them, relieve them, make sure their vet records are up to
date, etc. With a cane, you don't have any of these problems and you avoid
the fights in restaurants such as I opened this entry with. You can just
put your cane in a corner and forget about it when you come home, not so
with a dog.

Guide dogs can be a wonderful option for those who are willing and able to
take on that responsibility; but too many think that once they get a dog,
they can just go and go anywhere. Well, you still have to have the mobility
skills necessary to travel well and some of us, myself included, just don't
have the skills for whatever reason. One needs to think about their
lifestyle and whether having a dog would fit into that lifestyle. Quite
frankly, it would not for me as we travel quite a bit. We also live in a
condo which is not fair to a dog.

With regard to the issue of IDs, I think this should be mandatory for all
types of service dogs. This is one way of knowing which ones are legitimate
and which ones are not; and also which people are trying to use this
designation to have their pets ride with them in the cabin of a plane rather
than in the cargo holds where pets ride. We have lisences for drivers. Is
it too much to ask to have official IDs for dog guide and other service dog
teams. I speak of dogs as I believe these are the only legitimate service
animals which will put me at odds with some people for sure. I, however,
can't see letting many other types of animals into public facilities under
the guise of "service animal". I know this is a sensitive issue and just
another reason why I won't have a dog.

In the opening story, I don't have any doubt that the woman's rights were
violated but maybe an ID could have quickly diffused the situation. Only
time and a thorough investigation will tell us for sure whether this is the
case. I don't know whether we have heard the last of this story; and the
issues are certainly ones we have not heard the last of by a long shot.