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Originally Posted by Britster  I am so incredibly sorry for your condition! It must be so difficult, I can't imagine. 
But, remember that a dog MUST be task-trained to be legally considered a service dog. Comfort/being near him is not enough. Also, the tasks have to mitigate your disability. I know someone online who is deaf and her dog would turn her ears one direction, and she would look behind her to see if what she heard was relevant to her.
However this is considered a "passive" behavior of dogs, much like cuddling, affection, etc, are. So it's not an qualifying task for Service Dog work. A qualifying task would be more like if she heard something, and physically alerted her owner to the source of the noise. Sometimes that is used for things like alerting to sirens and so on.
It is important to be aware of what is a qualifying task and what is not. Anything your dog can do with none, or basic training is typically not qualifying.
It sounds like, as of now, you're leaning more towards having Gizmo has an ESA. |
This is totally not correct. As I said in my post, he does not do tasks at this time that you can see, but walking is a very important thing to keep, so yes he is doing a service even now, without training as he is being used for physical therapy for me, I have five plates and 14 screws in my back and had major damage done during a spinal cord surgery that went wrong and all my nerves were severed. I can assure you paraplegia is cause for a service dog certification, but what I was los saying is I guess the emotional part is kind of a bonus for me mentally. What I also said was that he will go through service dog training in the future, such as how to alert in an emergency. I merely said he does not do these things now, as he's only 8 months old and in my area needs to be 1 yr to be trained of any alerts. So no it is not emotional when you have to use catheters to empty your bladder or manually empty your bowels, have a stomach that does not digest food, and foot drop that makes it literally like you do not have a leg to stand on in a heartbeat (which is what caused my fall). These are physical disabilities, not emotional.
Here is the symptoms of my paralysis :
PARAPLEGIA BY CES-patients have the following symptoms, in various degrees:
Lower backpain.
Pain in the legs or pain radiating from the lower back to the legs.
Bladder problems (urinary incontinence, difficulty urinating).
Bowel problems (faecal incontinence as a result of low sphincter tone, obstipation caused by slow bowelmovement).
Motor deficit (muscle weakness) or paralysis of legs and/or feet; a typical symptom is the so called "drop foot", which is caused by weakness or paralysis of the muscles that have to lift the foot and toes; in the long run, the sagging of the foot-arch causes pain in bones and joints in the foot.
Sensory deviations (numbness / loss of sensation (anaesthesia) or altered sensation (paraesthesia)) of the skin in the "saddle area" (bottom, hips, inner thighs) and/or in the legs and/or feet; numb areas can show damage of the skin.
Sensory deviations in the perineal area, with sexual dysfunction as a result (not being able to have an erection / orgasm).
The cauda equina syndrome is only visible for the outside world where the motory deficit in legs and feet is concerned. Some CES patients can walk limited distances independently, others use crutches or a cane, and in the worst cases a wheelchair remains necessary. But the other - not clearly visible - symptoms can give as much trouble in every day life.
This is definitely not symptoms for an emotional support dog, but an actual trained service dog.
Sorry to sound abrupt, but its already hard to live this way, with people thinking a paraplegic is an emotional thing. I'm not meaning to offend anyone, but this is exactly the type of comment, as bad as the one I listed in my previous post that makes me wish more people were more informed before making comments.