“You can’t bring her in here.”

I have two major issues when someone tries to separate me from my service dog. There is the insult (liar, they say, without the words), and there is the attempt to re-inflict the injury. The second is more complicated, less obvious, so I’ll discuss it first.

I have a disability. I will never recognize my loved ones again, never know a face in the crowd. The grief that I have for that loss runs deep and I can only assume it will last my lifetime.

I have a fragment of recovery. She is not like my glasses or contacts, which let me see as clearly as I would without the myopia. I refer, of course, to my service dog. She gives me knowns from unknowns, tells me the faces I should recognize (Other things, too, but of all the things I cannot do, it is the inability to recognize my family that grieves me most).

“You can’t bring her in here.” The implication, of course, is that I am welcome enough without my ability to recognize people. Separating me from her is stealing my recovery. It re-inflicts the trauma and the loss. That it is done of ignorance, rather than malice, does not make it any less cruel.

The first aspect I mentioned is the insult. When I am turned away, as if she cannot possibly be a service dog, as if I cannot possibly have a disability, then the implication is that I have lied with the service dog tags that she wears. Such a casual assertion that the disability I cannot forget does not exist. No more forgivable an insult for the casual, careless nature of it.

And then- then, because this is not enough, I must remain, and calmly, reasonably, tolerantly clear up the misunderstanding. I must forgive the insult, ignore the injury, lest I make a bad impression. I will not know them should I see them again but by my actions they will judge every other individual with a disability accompanied by a small service dog.

On the Advantages of a Small Service Dog

Best is the ease of communication. Because I carry my service dog, such that she spends most of the time physically in contact with me, her communication is silent and subtle. Monitoring her has become second nature, and doesn’t rely on my vision. A good thing, that, considering that I trust my eyes far less these days.

Furthermore, because of what she must do, indicate on known individuals, it’s important for her to be able to see. Yoshi takes a positive approach, which is to indicate on familiar people (and cars, and helicopters- she has a very reasonable lack of faith in my abilities) and not to respond to the unfamiliar.

There are some flaws to this, of course. I am never without the sling and Pomeranian, and that limits freedom of movement to some extent. She has gained some weight since we started this and is heavier than any purse I have ever been in a habit of carrying. Still the real issues are neither hers, nor mine.

I come across, with some level of regularity, the “Floor problem”, namely that someone at the entrance of wherever I happen to be visiting insists that my dog must work from the floor. It is either a poorly explained version of “Dogs cannot be in grocery carts” (Not an issue, since I wear her), or the subtler “If it isn’t a seeing-eye-dog, it must not be a service dog” belief. In either case, the resulting discussion isn’t my preferred free-time activity.

Beyond that, of course, Yoshi is “cute”. She is cute, and portable, and worn in a sling and I have had more than one stranger in my personal space petting her without a word to me. An assumption, I suppose, that because she is cute she must be unemployed.

That said, for what I need, a smaller dog is definitely preferable. Cheaper to feed, of course, and better suited to the lifestyle of my desk job, but also close enough to communicate with body language.