Everyone knows about guide dogs for the blind. Most people know about “Hearing Ear” dogs for the hearing-impaired. A few people know about assistance dogs for the physically disabled. Even fewer know about service dogs that assist diabetics by detecting high or low blood sugar, or Seizure Detection Dogs that can sense changes in brainwaves before a seizure occurs and alert the person so that s/he can get to a safe place and/or take preventive medicine.
Almost nobody knows about Psychiatric Service Dogs. There has been a bit of a flurry in the press about PTSD dogs for returning veterans, While the Veteran’s Administration has been vocal about acknowledging the benefit of PTSD Dogs in mitigating the disabling and sometimes disastrous sequelae of combat-induced PTSD, they have nevertheless refused to pay for the dogs, preferring instead to underwrite expensive medicines that often do nothing but sedate the sufferer, without…
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