10/24/2015
For those who want protection work on their service dogs, please read the following article because it pertains to you: http://servicedogcentral.org/content/protection-training
This excerpt especially:
"While the ADA does not prevent a person from doing protection training with their service dog, it also does not protect their choice to do so, and businesses may legally exclude a protection trained dog from their premises even if it is also trained as a service dog, as a direct threat.
Some will attempt to argue that a dog cannot be a weapon, it's a dog. However, numerous courts across the US have in fact found that dogs with a proven ability and willingness to bite a human being either on command or as a part of the dog's own nature, can legally be considered weapons. The law makes no distinction based on whether the training to bite humans is done as part of a sport or for personal protection, only whether the dog has the natural propensity or the training to bite a human being or has a history of ever having bitten a human being for any reason. If the dog has been modified by training to bite on command or is temperamentally predisposed to biting a human, it is legally a weapon."
As well as the very last paragraph:
""We hold that, depending upon the circumstances of each case, a dog trained to attack humans on command, or one without training that follows such a command, and which is of sufficient size and strength relative to its victim to inflict death or great bodily injury, may be considered a "deadly weapon or instrument" within the meaning of section 245." "
When the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed and signed into law in 1990 the US Department of Justice was charged with writing the regulatory law to implement Titles II and III (state and local government services and public access respectively). The original definition of "service animal" in…
