New Perspective

                 I have to say that I am very happy living in Texas with Duchess even with the occasional public access issues for several reasons. One of the biggest reasons was on my recent visit to Seattle/Tacoma area there was a great deal of people taking their dogs to grocery stores and malls. I was really made about the stores allowing this. It is really against most states health codes to have animals in grocery stores. Duchess is different because she is trained to handle all the sounds, noises and environment of a store. She is also bathed and groomed to a different standard than a pet would be. I was really astonished at this but what made very mad was an incident at a store.

                  There was a man and a little mixed breed dog at the store. The dog started off barking constantly at Duchess then proceeded to try and jump out to the cart. The owner grabbed the dog and luckily got the dog to stay in the cart. The dog was really frantic to get at Duchess and he as walking by continued to try and get out of the cart. I am not a fan of people taking the dogs to the store for health reasons alone and number one reason is Duchess's safety. I am very protective as anyone would be one your so bonded to your dog but also because she makes it possible to have freedom and the ability to work full time. I will never take for granted my rights but this is crazy how everyone needs to take their dogs with them to the grocery stores or restaurants. I find it to be a lot of work even with a trained animal but I can't imagine what it would be like with an untrained dog. Some of the reasons service dogs retire early are usually health issue or dog attacks. The dog attacks can cause fear for the service animals and some never return to work after a bad attack. I am learning that I really support stores being tough about who has a dog in the stores like in Texas because I found it too be too chaotic in Seattle with the dogs going everywhere.