On a rainy August afternoon, Assemblywoman Donna Lupardo was joined by service dogs and their owners to promote a free county-wide Service Dog Education Program.
The program is organized by Stand With Me Assistance Dog Team Training, Inc., a Binghamton-based non-profit which offers free service dog training for disabled veterans. The program is made possible thanks to the Conrad and Virginia Klee Foundation, Broome County Veterans Services and the United Way of Broome County.
According to Executive Director Myrph McMahon, public knowledge regarding the rights of service dogs and their owners is widely misunderstood, a fact the new program aims to address.
Stand With Me can tailor training to a company’s need, and offers written training materials, an online webinar and in-person or virtual presentations ranging from 15 to 45 minutes. Topics covered in training include the legal background for service dogs, how to identify genuine and fraudulent service dogs, and respectful and safe ways to interact with service dogs.
“It is so incredibly important that the general public, businesses, administrators and anyone who has public facing staff in their organization to learn about service dog laws, and how to decipher the difference between a fraudulent service dog and a genuine one,” said McMahon. “We also want to place emphasis on how many disabilities are not visible.”
According to McMahon, individuals with service dogs are sometimes illegally turned away from businesses, or improperly and excessively questioned due to misunderstandings surrounding the rights of those with service animals. As part of the educational program, Stand With Me also informs attendees of the difference between service dogs and therapy or emotional support dogs, which are commonly mistaken for each other and do not have the same regulations surrounding them.
Service dogs receive thorough training on how to help their owners as well as how to behave in public, and are legally allowed anywhere the general public is, according to McMahon. One common way service dogs help their veteran owners is by waking them up at the start of a nightmare, or creating space in crowded areas such as supermarkets to avoid their owner feeling trapped.
To access the free educational program, businesses and organizations can contact Meghan Jensen at meghan@standwithmeorg.com. An initial online webinar is available on Stand With Me’s website.
This article originally appeared on Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin: Free Service Dog Education Program now available to Broome County businesses. What to know
Reporting by Riccardo Monico, Binghamton Press & Sun Bulletin / Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin
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