Autism Service Dogs

Dogs, like many people, prefer familiar patterns. Others need them. Glindy is one of those dogs, and I'm one of those people.

One of Glindy's patterns is that the back yard is a safe haven for doing her business. She will almost always potty on cue when I take her out in the back yard just before bed, but I'm pretty sure it isn't the verbal cue itself at work. Instead, I think it's the whole routine, including time and place. Even if I take her out early or late, there's still a familiarity around the procedure that cues her that it's time to relieve herself before we both turn in.

Because of some landscaping work I'm having done, the back yard was off-limits yesterday while some sealant dried. I took the dogs out front instead, into the newly-xeriscaped (and safely enfenced) front yard. Benny and Spencer were happy to explore and pee all over the boulders and river rock, but Glindy refused to do the same. She chose to stick right beside me instead, which was a laudable sentiment but not exactly what was needed at the moment.

Now, keep in mind that the back yard was recently re-done with the same river rock, so it wasn't simply a substrate issue. Part of it was the newness of it, and Glindy has been well-trained that new places usually mean "no peeing." So, I'm sure that was a part of it, although usually her instinct to over-mark another dog's scent overcomes that fast enough. There must have been something else at work, too.

I've been busily packing for the past few days, trying to get a head start for my trip to Idaho tomorrow. In the past, the routine has been that suitcases in the living room means frantic rushing through the night followed by travel the next morning, and this always distresses Glindy tremendously. So, it's definitely a stressful pattern for us, but it's a routine that we both understand quite well.

This time, though, in a vain and ultimately fruitless attempt to avoid last-minute enfrazzlement (don't bother to look the word up; I coined it just now) I started packaging several days ahead of time. Whether or not this leads to an actual reduction in night-before lunacy remains to be seen, but it is most definitely confusing Glindy, who thinks I might be leaving at any moment and is desperately worried I might leave her behind.

Why would that contribute to her pee-related confusion? I have no idea, but I suspect it played a larger part than anyone else might think. As a result, she had to spend the night in her crate to avoid any nocturnal micturations, but was none the worse for wear when I dropped her off at day care this morning.

I certainly couldn't go 14 hours without a bathroom break, but it's good to know that Glindy can. After all, I've been stressing about our six-hour travel time to Boise, and whether she could make the whole trip without a pit stop. Strangely enough, I feel reassured; she will almost always pee at the Reno airport's puppy park, if for no other reason than to tell all those other dogs who's boss. So, unless she's sick, six hours should be no trouble at all.

On our last trip together, I learned a few tips for keeping Glindy in better health when we travel. Just like people, travel can be stressful for dogs, and changes in food or water can combine with stress to cause diarrhea.

When we went to Los Angeles last summer, Glindy ended up at the vet because of a long bout of chronic diarrhea. In that instance, it was likely due to eating a rotten piece of Kentucky Fried Chicken she found under a bush while on a potty break, but ever since then I've been a little hypersensitive about her intestinal health while traveling.

I often bring along freeze-dried raw diets such as Nature's Variety or Wysong Archetype Buffet, but was noticing that a steady diet of this stuff was still giving her tummy trouble. In fact, while we were in Denver, three days of stress and Archetype Buffet were giving her mushy, greenish poop, which is what made me switch gears even though I consider these quality foods.

When at home, Glindy rotates between frozen and freeze-dried raw foods in the mornings, but also gets a raw meaty bone every night. It occurred to me that when we travel, she was getting only the freeze-dried raw, and that this was probably upsetting her internal balance.

The biggest problem with raw meaty bones is that they're inconvenient to feed in a hotel room. No one wants to see their dog dragging a bloody lamb shank across the carpet, but Glindy really needed the fresh meat and (more importantly) the stool-firming fresh bone, so I experimented a bit with some alternative feeding strategies.

First, I tried feeding her raw meaty bones on the tile in the bathroom, but that didn't really suit either one of us. For my part, I still ended up having to wipe up blood and grease from the floor. Glindy, on the other hand, didn't want to be shut away from me while she ate, and many hotel bathrooms simply aren't big enough (or interesting enough) for me to wait in there with her while she eats.

Next, I tried feeding her on the balcony outside my room. That worked fine when I stood outside with her, but this really wasn't any better than the bathroom idea. She became anxious and uninterested in her food if I went back inside, even if she could see me through the sliding glass door. For my part, I had no interest in standing outside in bitter weather while she ate, so that idea became unworkable, too.

The ideal solution turned out to be bite-sized pieces of raw chicken. Because of Glindy's size (she's about 60 pounds), chicken drummettes turned out to be ideal hotel food. They're small enough that she can eat out of a bowl without dragging the food around, and yet large enough that she still has to chew each piece rather than swallowing it whole. In addition, they're easy to find at grocery stores, and come in packages small enough to keep in a hotel mini-fridge. What more could you ask for?

Once I began rotating in the chicken drummettes, Glindy's system seemed to stabilize. I still gave her a bowl of Archetype Buffet every few days, along with raw eggs and various table scraps to give her a little variety, but the chicken became the staple in her diet.

According to Tom Lonsdale, a dog can thrive solely on raw meaty bones, although I tend to err on the side of full-spectrum nutrition whenever possible. But since it worked so well on our last trip, I'm going to continue feeding her this way on future trips as long as her health remains good.

Note: Chicken drummettes look like small drumsticks, but they're actually the part of the wing between the shoulder and the elbow. If your store doesn't carry them, you can also look for "party wings," which are really just wing mid-sections. I've had equal success with both cuts, although I prefer feeding the whole wing when we're not traveling.

I'm supposed to be heading to Idaho in a week or so to start a new job, but things have gotten a bit complicated. There are a number of reasons for this, but one of the biggest complications is my service dog. Let me explain.

I'm in the middle of contract negotiations with a company that isn't really interested in being equitable; instead, they're trying to ensure that I get the short end of every part of the deal. Naturally, I've been pushing back, and trying to ensure that the contract is fair to both sides.

As a result, they're insisting that I come for a final interview the Friday before I start the job. Of course, they insist that it's not really an interview, but since the implementation of the contract is contingent on the success of the meeting, that's exactly what it is.

In my line of work, I'd usually refuse to jump through this additional hoop. In-person interviews are a rarity in this business, and are usually a huge red flag that something has gone wrong during the contract negotiations. In this case, however, I've decided that I need to give in to the demand for an in-person interview because of Glindy.

You see, as an independent consultant, I'm not fully protected by Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act. This law doesn't really address contract employees or independent contractors, leaving quite a lot open to judicial interpretation. While I receive more protection under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, that really only helps me when dealing with contracts that are federally funded in some way.

So, as a matter of policy, I don't disclose the fact that I have a service dog to prospective clients. It's not relevant to my ability to perform the work that I'm hired to do, and could only prejudice contract negotiations. Since most people are not evil enough to turn someone away at the door when they show up to work with a legitimate service animal, that's exactly what I do.

In this case, however, I'm torn. I'm pretty sure that the Idaho agency I'm subcontracting through is looking for an excuse to cancel the contract because I won't allow them to put some very unreasonable provisions into the agreement. Look at it this way: if I show up to work on my first day with a service dog in tow, after having refused to meet with them in person, it looks like I was trying to hide something; on the other hand, showing up for a "non-interview" the week before gives them enough time to find some excuse (other than my disability or the presence of my service dog) to cancel the contract before my official start date.

In the end, it's not about what's right and wrong; it's about how people think, and the motives they ascribe to others based on their own frame of reference. It's a shame that I have to go through the contortions of trying to guess what people may think—especially since this is something very difficult to do with Asperger's Syndrome—but in this case the effort is probably warranted.

Going to the extra interview seems like the lesser of two evils. Bad things could certainly come of it, but I'd much rather take the moral high road instead of painting myself in a poor light. The folks from the agency will just have to look after their own karma; let's just hope that they're more upstanding people than I think they are, and that they won't use this concession on my part as a way to discriminate against me.