The movie of Jodi Picoult’s My Sister’s Keeper came out last summer. I haven’t seen it, but I read the book in 2005. Over at FWD/Foward Ouyang Dan writes about invisible disabilities, as it relates to a minor theme in the book. Campbell Alexander, the lawyer who takes on Anna’s (the protagonist) medical emancipation case pro bono, has a service dog. He isn’t blind, and, whenever he enters a public place, people tell him that no dogs are allowed. When told that it’s a service dog, everyone responds with something along the lines of “But you aren’t blind, are you?” Campbell Alexander uses different excuses for owning the dog, among which bizarre ones like the dog keeping him away from magnets that could cause trouble with his iron lung and the dog translating for his Spanish-speaking clients.
Note that there is a real, valid reason why Campbell Alexander owns a service dog, but it doesn’t become obvious until towards the end of the book. Ouyang recently reread the book and says there are clues to the function of the service dog throughout the book. I can’t remember these. In fact, I assumed that the dog wasn’t really a service dog and that Campbell was just having a sense of entitlement. Despite the fact that he takes on Anna’s case pro bono, it looks throughout the book that Campbell really has more self-serving motives and doesn’t have the clients’ best interest in mind. Maybe that’s just how I looked at it though, since I have no clue how family court hearings tend to go. In the book, Campbell Alexander constantly interrupts opposing counsel (Anna’s mother) with objections and even asks the judge to remove either Anna or her mother from the home pending the case. The guardian ad litem, to whom Campbell has a complex personal and professional relationship, makes it seem like he is a rather self-absorbed man. I pretty much incorporated that into my stereotype of lawyers, and took it to be a correct representation of his character.
Now of course even if someone is an arrogant, self-absorbed jerk, that doesn’t mean that he can’t have a valid invisible disability entitling him to a service dog. However, I took his apparent refusal to explain about the reason for his service dog, as further evidence that there was none. You know, I couldn’t imagine at the time that maybe your disability status is private and you aren’t obligated to share it with random strangers. My only disability identified at the time, was visible, and even with regard to my invisible disability, I am pretty open. My opinion at the time was: if you have a valid reason for needing an accommodation under the ADA (such as access with a service dog), you should be able to explain this reason. Well, maybe you should be able to, but are you really supposed to tell a waiter at a restaurant all about your disability? At the time, I thought so.
From there on, I automatically assumed that Campbell Alexander was faking. You know, the dog was just a regular dog, but the owner had a huge sense of entitlement and thought his being an attorney made him eligible for access with a dog. Even way until the near end of the book, when the dog starts barking loudly in the courtroom and Campbell refuses to remove it, I assumed that he was really feeling better than the judge. Even if it is a service dog, it should behave itself, right? I couldn’t imagine that maybe there was a reason that dog barked, until the reason Campbell has a service dog in the first place was shoved right into all other characters’ and my face.
If I had this attitude towards characters in a book, I’m pretty sure I’d have had the same attitude towards people in real life. Of course, in the book, the arrogant lawyer stereotype helped me form my opinion, but I could be having the same prejudices about real people I met. Actually, if I were in a position of authority, and someone with an invisible disability requested formal accommodations without a proper explanation, I’d still look upon them with suspicion today. It is, after all, different to write that disability status is private on a blog, than to act upon this opinion in real life.
It’s a bit like House and his pain and his addiction to prescription drugs, and how that is treated in the show.
Now I have known about social signal dogs for many years (up to about 1999), and thought about getting one for 2001 and 2002. Over the course of the 2000s I have become increasingly terrified of dogs, and my fear has become more unreasoning with time.
And there are all sorts of reasons to have dogs. People with post-traumatic stress disorder have them, especially the ones who have had military life thrust upon them and the consequences. Psychiatric service dogs are very good, most of them, but there is a controversy on which tasks they can/must do. It is a bit more complicated than, sit and stay.
I suppose you might be aware that 10% of blind people have a dog, and most people who are blind are unsuited by temperament. This was said as much in the World Book.