Through a handlers eyes.
A new format with some insites from my own life with an assistance dog, and still the occasional interview. Freedom with four legs.
Through a handlers eyes.
Dealing with trolls, both online and in real life.
If you have any ideas for an episode let me know.
Navigating public misunderstandings and online negativity can be daunting for assistance dog handlers, but standing strong in the face of unwarranted judgments is crucial. Personal anecdotes, like an uncomfortable encounter at a supermarket, spotlight the need for resilience and community support. We delve into strategies for dealing with trolls without feeling obligated to justify our lives or the roles of our dogs. As we emphasize the power of kindness and proactive support, we encourage listeners to embrace compassion in their daily interactions. Join us in this conversation about breaking down barriers, offering solidarity, and ensuring that both handlers and their dogs feel valued and respected.
Email: throughahandlerseyes@gmail.com
Hi, welcome to Through a Handler's Eyes, welcome to my Facebook Live. I post this on the Through a Handler's Eyes website and also I put it up in the Through a Handless Eye's podcast host. Today's topic I'm going to talk about trolling within the assistance dog community, whether that be in-person trolling or online trolling, because it can be devastating for everybody involved, and it's hard enough when the general public do it, but when people within our own community do it, it's really, really difficult. Ok, and whilst I have not been affected by online trolling, I have been affected by in-person. So hopefully today we can have a bit of a chat and I will hopefully give you some ideas on how to overcome those things. Overcome those things. So if you have had any trolling or you have been questioned due to your dog stories in the chat box, and even if it's not while we're doing the live, you can do it afterwards and I'll read all the comments.
Jo Hilder:Now. I myself haven't had online trolling, but I have been out in the public and had people say to me you don't look sick. What do you need a dog for that dog? You know you shouldn't be doing that. As you may know, I have MS and I have some balance issues and my dog makes me feel safe and he's trained to pick up items for me and lean against me and balance me and a number of other things, and he is very much an assistance dog. So I can only imagine what people go through with smaller dogs or dogs that aren't in the what do we call the fab five, and so what a dog breed doesn't determine whether it's an assistance dog or not, because what determines whether it's an assistance dog or not is what it does for its handler.
Jo Hilder:A person I knew who had a little tiny, very small dog that she used to carry in a bag under her arm. She had extreme social anxiety, extreme agoraphobia once she got her little dog and she could carry him and feel his heartbeat and he would lick her hand if she was starting to get overwhelmed. He was her assistant still, because he helped her go from a lady who never left her house to someone who could go out and about and do her own grocery shopping. Before she got him and had him trained, she never left the house for five years. So there is no way of knowing if that dog is or is not an assistance dog, given that everyone's need, everyone's disability is different and what works for one person may not work for another.
Jo Hilder:I'm lucky again. My dog does look the part, but it doesn't. Other people aren't so lucky. Now, there could be a lot of reasons other people aren't so lucky Now, there could be a lot of reasons. People do that. They may have people troll sorry. They may have insecurities themselves. They're worried about their dog being perceived as not a real assistance dog. They People within the community really should know better because, as I said before, we're all different. Our dogs are all different, our needs are different. Some people have got this perception of what an assistance dog team looks like based on guide dogs, and there are still some people out there that think German Shepherds shouldn't be assistance dogs, where in fact they were the first guide dog and they were the quintessential assistance dog.
Jo Hilder:Now I again have spoken to a young lady who had a dog not perceived to be a normal assistance dog. She was at her local shopping centre and her dog was doing what he was supposed to do. And her dog was doing what he was supposed to do. And when she got home she sat down and made a cup of coffee and went on Facebook and on her local assistance dog group. Someone had put. I have just seen a person at this shopping center with this type of dog and the dog was jumping and pushing and trying to drag her out of the centre and was really badly behaved. On the contrary, he was actually doing what he was trained to do His first.
Jo Hilder:This young lady dissociates, so she zones out basically for want of a better expression people how she, how her dog has been trained. To help bring her back from that dissociation and it usually happens when she's overwhelmed and shopping centers are a great place to get overwhelmed is he will lick her hand first or headbutt her just on the side. If that does not get a response the response he's trained to wait for he will jump on her from the front to throw her off balance a little bit. This usually brings her out of a dissociative state because she has to step back. If that doesn't work, he will do one bark and that bark is enough to bring her out of a dissociative state immediately, simply because in her mind dogs don't bark, they shouldn't be barking. Assistance dogs shouldn't bark. So that was trained for him because we know that that was what would bring her out of her dissociative state. Then he takes her to the nearest exit. Now that could look like he's dragging her along, but he's not. He is dragging her in a way, but he's taking her out of that shopping centre so she can go and get a breath. That dog was doing exactly what he was meant to do.
Jo Hilder:The person on the internet who made very scathing comments about it being not a real assistance dog and she should have been chucked out of the shopping center and blah, blah, blah, has no idea what was going on, didn't ask, didn't bother to inquire. So this person I don't know if it was a male or a female has gone out there and disparaged. This person shared identifying information of this person. So now she felt like she couldn't go back to her local shopping centre because she felt like she was being judged and stared at every time she walked in there. When in where your dog's doing its job, but that task may look to other people like misbehavior, put it in the comments, let me know and, um, I can have a quick if. If it's not during the uh live, I will have a quick five minutes at the beginning of my next cast to discuss those things so that people know they're not alone, because you're not alone.
Jo Hilder:There are lots of people out there that go through very similar situations. Now, um and there again, I'll give you another story of someone I knew was on an outing in the evening at like an RSL club I think it was, and some lady who I would assume had her own mental health issues, came up and verbally, verbally attacked her look at your dog. He's. Look at it, it's not doing what it's supposed to do. It was a German Shepherd. Look at it, it's not an assistance dog, blah, blah. And her dog was trying to drag her out of the situation. Now I spoke to her the night of the incident and told her just to give me a ring the next day to go home and sleep on it. Then we discussed what the dog was doing. She was nudging her, pulling, trying to pull her out of the situation, and I asked her what she was trying to do. And she was doing her job. But the person who was trolling her in the RSL had brought up her anxiety, had made her dissociate, so she couldn't. All she could see was that her dog was being naughty. But her dog was not being naughty. The dog was trying to get her out of an abusive situation, which is what the dog was trying to do. That's not the only kind of trolling.
Jo Hilder:I have had one incident at my local supermarket. My dog is a standard Labradoodle, a big fluff ball, and I was in line to go through the checkout. There was a lady and another person behind me and to my left there was a shelf with bread on it. Rather than asking me to pass her that bread, she leaned over the top of Rory and he was crouched down. Now she kept saying to me he's going to bite me, he's an assistance dog. He won't bite you, apart from anything, even if he wasn't an assistance dog, he's a very gentle critter. And no, no, he's going to bite me, he's going to bite me. So she was leaning over him. I dropped my keys. Now Rory picks my keys up. I have a tag on my keys, like the one I have on my phone, because he's cracked one of my screens and it's easy for him to pick up. And he just looked at me and he was crouched right down because this lady was leaning over him, because he was scared and he wasn't reacting. But he didn't do his task either. She said to me see, he's useless. He's a useless dog. Now. That really affected me because had she not been leaning over him that way, he would have picked it up. He has done it a million times this particular shot. We go in all the time. I'm very blessed, I'm well known there. The lady at the checkout said to me don't worry about that lady, she's mean to everybody. And she said to me and we know Rory's well behaved. So that was good, I had that support. But that lady really really affected me badly. If I hadn't had the nice lady at the checkout, I may not have recovered as quickly he did. He just walked out and we were back on task.
Jo Hilder:Now, have you guys had any of those sorts of situations where you've either been out and been attacked in person for your dog or, even worse, had someone? I was speaking to a lady recently. She has a small assistance dog and someone just walked up and picked it up. Now her assistance dog is a seizure alert dog. It needs to be next to her all the time. This lady just picked it up and it was vested. It had all the signs on it and the handler just said did you just pick my dog up? And the woman said, well, she's so cute. No, and I think we need to learn to Stand up for ourselves. It's not easy. It's not easy Now For me when there's online trolling.
Jo Hilder:One reason I don't get trolled is I scroll. Scroll is my friend. When there's online trolling and I can see something happening in any group I'm in, I'll just scroll past. If I read something and I think that the person is being unduly harassed, I might send them a private message and say you know, don't worry about that, give them a little bit of support. But my way of dealing with trolling is scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. That's my favorite way of dealing with trolling.
Jo Hilder:You don't owe anyone an explanation about your dog, your tasks, size of your dog, what type of dog you've got. I once heard something, I once read something that said it's not my business what someone else thinks of me, and that's helped me a lot, because not my business. I someone else thinks of me, and that's helped me a lot because it's not my business. I know what I think of me and that's okay. Some days I don't think much, but most of the time I like myself pretty well. I don't care what other people think, because I know the truth about myself, if you don't owe anyone an explanation. Okay, I had a man once ask me a poor man. He was about the fifth person in ten minutes that accosted me to ask me things. That he asked me about my medical condition and I'd had it. And I just said to him well, if you tell me about your last prostate exam, I'll tell you about mine. And he was quite taken aback and I said, well, you're asking me for very personal information. Most of the time I wouldn't do that, but I just had it this day. I just had it enough.
Jo Hilder:And because I quite like talking to people about my dog and and how education, I like educating people and that any dog can be an assistance dog and some dogs shouldn't approach because seizure alert dogs. I let rory talk to people sometimes when I give him permission, because he I have balance issues. I don't have a seizure issue. I don't have an issue diabetes or something that could cause my life so I will let him say hello sometimes and I will talk to people about approaching assistance dogs and talking to people, what I was really hoping to get. Unfortunately, we haven't had any.
Jo Hilder:Let me have a look at see if there has been any comments. Sorry, I'm using the wrong mouse. So I have one lady here that is just saying that what upset her was her dog. A man was continually telling her her dog was a pet. I understand that too. I have recently spoken to someone who an NDIS person told them their dog was a pet, even though they were in the building with them helping them at that moment. So people can be I don't know what's the right word to use really. So what I really wanted out of this particular life was to encourage everyone in the community to support each other. We're all on the same ocean not necessarily in the same boat, but we're all on the same ocean.
Jo Hilder:We should know better than to say someone's dog is not real, a real assistance dog. Someone doesn't have a disability, someone is I don't know faking it or their task. The dog shouldn't be doing that task, as in the young lady whose dog jumped up on her. I help people train their assistance dogs and probably what went into that task was sitting down and saying right, what bothers you the most? How do you come out of your dissociative state? Why don't we take these steps? Because you've got to do what works for you and your dog so long as you're fulfilling the legislation, when you're out and about and your dog's well behaved, clean and tidy, doesn't approach people, does all the right things, passes a PAT test, although you don't have to pass a PAT test, although you don't have to pass a PAT test, but it should be able to pass a PAT test, a PAT public access test. Sorry, I get into the jargon.
Jo Hilder:The thing is, as I said, we should know better, we should know better. So I want us to support each other. Every assistance dog team is unique. Every person is unique. Every dog is unique. Every dog is unique. Legitimate, life-changing work, a legitimate, life-changing task, could look different for every team. Now, someone else who has dissociative states, licking their hand may be enough to bring them out, or nudging them may be enough to bring them out. But this young lady had more deep issues.
Jo Hilder:I would love to hear any of your stories, if there are any out there. And, christine, you know the truth about your dog not being a pet, so don't worry about anyone else. These things are common, but they shouldn't be common in our community. I would love you to in the podcast. Let me know your stories, send me your stories and we can see that we're not alone in this. Like I said, we're all in the same ocean not necessarily in the same boat. Same ocean, not necessarily in the same boat. Okay, I would love for everyone to follow through a handler's eyes.
Jo Hilder:I brought this podcast back because I think that I can help and I'd love to do those interviews again. I really enjoyed interviewing handlers and I think we can all help each other and I would like this to be one of the platforms that we can help each other. So continue to share your stories. I have a. There's an email address for through a handler's eyes, which is through a handler's eyes at gmailcom, and you can send me your stories there and, like I said, if I get more stories, then I will have a discussion about this week's stories at the beginning of at this month's stories at the beginning of next month's show, so we can build on this and help each other.
Jo Hilder:Now, don't forget the purpose of the task is what matters, not what the task is or what the dog is, and if you see someone you think might be struggling, ask if they need someone to help, if they need a friend, and if someone asks you if you need help, be kind with your answer, whether you're accepting it or not. Be kind with your answer, whether you're accepting it or not, because we should be helping everyone and everyone needs a kind word every now and then. And my last thing remember we're all doing the best we can at any given time, and that includes our dogs. So bye, I'll see you next month. Thanks for listening. If you've got any questions or you would like to be a guest, email me at throughahandlerseyes at gmailcom. Bye.