Animals in Service

By Cate Lineberry

Dogs have served humans as protectors, hunters, and companions since they were ultimately domesticated some 14,000 years ago. But today, they also help those with disabilities by performing a range of tasks from pulling wheelchairs to assisting with seizures—and they're not alone.

In recent years, trainers have taught other animals to help the disabled. An organization called Helping Hands teaches capuchin monkeys to help with daily tasks. Individual owners have trained pot-bellied pigs to pick up dropped items and to pull wheelchairs. Others have prepared cats and birds to alert to ringing doorbells and miniature horses to guide the visually impaired.

Although evidence points to animals serving disabled humans as long ago as the first century. The modern concept of the service animal took root during World War I. Many of the wounded returning from the front had been blinded by poison gas. A German doctor named Gerhard Stalling began investigating how to train dogs as reliable guides. In 1916, he opened the first guide dog school, eventually teaching some 600 dogs each year. His success led to the opening of other guide-dog programs throughout the world, including the first in the United States in 1929.

In 1975, after seeing donkeys and other animals helping mobility-impaired people in less developed parts of the world, Bonita Bergin, founder of Canine Companions for Independence, developed the concept of service, or assistance, dogs to help those with physical disabilities. Rather than leading the blind, these dogs help people perform daily tasks they are unable to do themselves.

Since the 1970s, dozens of groups around the world have trained dogs to perform a number of specific tasks. Hearing dogs alert the hard-of-hearing to household sounds, including telephone rings, knocks at the door, or baby cries. Seizure-response dogs can fetch medication, a telephone, a cool washcloth in the refrigerator, or even press a panic button. Social signal dogs alert autistic people if they start making repetitive movements, like hand-flapping, and the dogs prompt sensory input, such as recognizing a familiar person in a crowd. And mobility dogs assist those with health impairments by opening doors, turning on lights, pulling wheelchairs—even loading the washing machine.

Ed Salau, who lost his left leg in Iraq in 2004 when a rocket-propelled grenade hit his vehicle, knows the benefits a mobility dog provides. After hearing from friends that Carolina Canines for Service in Wilmington, N.C., was looking to match a service dog with a wounded veteran, Salau applied. In November 2007, he received Gabriel, a black Labradoodle who knows more than 70 commands. Gabriel assists Salau when he falls and helps him balance when he goes up and down stairs while wearing his prosthetic leg. "He's like a walking cane," Salau says. "Everywhere my feet go, his paws go."

In addition to helping those with physical disabilities, dogs are also assisting people with mental illnesses. Joan Esnayra, founder and president of the Psychiatric Service Dog Society, was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 1996. Soon after her diagnosis, she adopted a Rhodesian Ridgeback. She  noticed that during long bouts of hypomanic activity, such as working nonstop at her computer for long hours, the dog's behavior would change: It would bump her elbow with its nose repeatedly. "I wondered if it was possible that my dog was alerting me to hypomania," she says.

This experience launched her interest in "psychiatric-service dogs," a term she coined to refer to "dogs trained to do work or perform tasks for those with mental-health disabilities." If a person begins to have a panic attack, a dog can lead the person to a safe place or retrieve her keys or telephone. A dog can nudge an owner suffering from depression until he gets out of bed in the morning, or turn on lights and check a room when someone with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) wakes from a nightmare. Currently few organizations train psychiatric-service dogs, says Esnayra, so individuals with mental-health disabilities must learn to train the dogs themselves, preferably with the guidance of a professional dog trainer.

Today, dogs are still the species humans turn to most to help the disabled, but any animal "trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of an individual with a disability" is legally considered a service animal by the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Such animals are legally permitted to accompany their handlers into businesses open to the public. This includes unusual service animals, such as pot-bellied pigs, monkeys, and miniature horses. But there are some caveats: Under the Air Carrier Access Act of 1986, the Department of Transportation evaluates on a case-by-case basis whether the more exotic animals may accompany their handlers on board airplanes.

Most exotic animals are trained by disabled individuals acting on their own. However, since 1979, Helping Hands, a Boston nonprofit, has trained capuchin monkeys (primates indigenous to South America) to help people with spinal-cord injuries. The group chose this monkey because of its small size, averaging six to 10 pounds, its dexterity, and its intelligence, says Megan Talbert, the chief operating officer and director of placements at Helping Hands. The monkeys are bred in captivity at a local zoo. Several of their front teeth are removed for safety when they are young. Finally, after years of training, a monkey joins its recipient to help him or her with a variety of tasks, from turning pages in a book to getting a glass of water.
 
In 2004, Craig Cook, who was paralyzed in a car accident, was matched with Minnie, a five-pound, 15-ounce capuchin. "She's transformed my life," he says. "She lets me have some independence and normalcy." Before Minnie's arrival, dropping his phone or forgetting to ask his caregiver to turn on his computer could ruin Cook's day. He'd have to wait—sometimes for hours—for a friend or neighbor to check on him. Now when he needs something, he calls Minnie. She scurries over to help him, rewarded for her efforts with praise and a lick of peanut butter.

There's no doubt that in addition to performing tasks, service animals also provide companionship to those they assist. "If I get down, she knows it," Cook says of Minnie. "She jumps on my back and runs her fingers through my hair." Cook sometimes takes Minnie with him when he goes out. "She's made me somewhat of a celebrity," he says. "It's all about the monkey."