View from our mobile office

We're in an Arizona rest area almost in California trying to catch up with things while we have some cell service. We're going to Joshua Tree National Park next.

You Can Take Your Dog to Work

NPR has a great story on this subject (see link below).  Turns out it's good for people to take their dogs to work.  There aren't too many places where "normal" people can do that, but it's a possibility for people with psychiatric disabilities.  Not only service dogs, but also emotional support animals, can be requested to accompany a person with a psychiatric disability to work in the U.S. as a "reasonable accommodation." See http://www.servicepoodle.com/useful-links-1/dogs-in for links to relevant .gov web pages.

You can read the National Public Radio Story at: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/03/30/149684409/take-your-dog-to-the-office-and-stress-less?ft=1&f=1128&sc=tw

Joanne Shortell, Maeve's Service Human

servicehuman@servicepoodle.com
www.servicepoodle.com
www.facebook.com/servicepoodle
www.linkedin.com/in/joanneshortell
call us using "call Maeve and Joanne" at http://www.servicepoodle.com/contact-us

Joanne and Maeve (her psychiatric service poodle) help people with psychiatric disabilities discover their rights to emotional support animals in no-pets housing without pet deposits or pet fees and their rights to service dogs

What if water cost a quarter?

That's what we paid for it in Gila Bend, AZ at this water dispenser.

How much would it cost you if you had to buy a week's supply for all your indoor use? According to the EPA the average family of four would be popping 1,960 quarters into the machine -- $490 for a week's supply.I'll bet that would change your water use habits!

I don't scrimp on water for drinking at all. The vast majority of water goes into me, Maeve, and Sibol as drinking water. I use extremely low water use personal hygeine and cleaning methods and I use a dry composting toilet. It would cost me only $2.50 for a week's supply for drinking, cooking, and cleaning for me, the cat and the dog.

Want to see where your 1,960 gallons goes? Here's the link to the EPA site.

Joanne Shortell, Maeve's Service Human

servicehuman@servicepoodle.com
www.servicepoodle.com
www.facebook.com/servicepoodle
www.linkedin.com/in/joanneshortell
call us using "call Maeve and Joanne" at http://www.servicepoodle.com/contact-us

Joanne and Maeve (her psychiatric service poodle) help people with psychiatric disabilities discover their rights to emotional support animals in no-pets housing without pet deposits or pet fees and their rights to service dogs

Great video on ADA rights to public access for people who use service dogs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLVMIO5P5H8

It's slightly out of date as it was made before the Department of Justice limited service animals to dogs and miniature horses, but otherwise it is accurate.

There is no life worth living without risk

Just the other day I made a reservation for this tour and then drove to my mom's for a week's visit. Look at the lead story in her local newspaper yesterday. She was good; she didn't make a fuss.

Following my bliss and my blisters

I have been receiving signals about my life choices lately. All of them approve of my spending time outdoors. The night before my first real camping trip in the Maevemobile, I saw a spectacular green-tailed meteorite break into several pieces above the desert behind my Mom's rv park. The night before I headed to Yuma to have a solar system installed and then to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, I saw another meteorite in the skies over Tucson. Today I was less than half watching a PBS program, but heard one phrase clearly: "Follow your bliss," a quote from Joseph Campbell. The reason I was not really watching was that I was browsing a book on national parks in the southwest, looking for destinations.

The quote resonated in me and evoked memories of my recent experiences in the Coronado National Forest and at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. In both places I felt a deep peace like nothing I had ever felt before. It was not a hypomanic high or a giddy, in-love emotion. When I looked it up in wikipedia, there was another quote by him in response to accusations that he was promoting hedonism (he was not). The quote was, "I should have said follow your blisters."

Take time to smell the cactus

We're in the Sonoran desert and the cholla are starting to bloom. So far I've seen yellow orange and red flowers on different types of cholla. They smell good too.

View from our mobile office

We're at Organ Pipe Cactus National Park near Ajo AZ

View from our mobile office

In Benson AZ

HEADLINE: Service Dogs Generally Well Accepted by Businesses

It's not a big problem to walk into the average business with a service dog, but you rarely see that fact in newspapers, Facebook, or other media. I hate to post material that mentions the difficult problems people do sometimes encounter without emphasizing the much greater number of times there is not a significant problem.  The other day I posted something about a problem business in Massachusetts, so let me give you the scoop on the many  businesses that treat us appropriately.

Just last week Maeve's Business Honor Roll added its 100th business. Note that this list contains only the businesses I REMEMBER to enter (I have significant memory and attention problems) and it includes only businesses Maeve and I have personally had a good experience in since we began documenting our good experiences seven months ago. These are not just local businesses that have gotten used to us either -- there are multiple businesses on the list from each of seven states.

Let me tell you about our experiences from today -- 100% positive in visiting six businesses and private medical facilities.  Our itinerary included:

CT DMHAS NW Region is IN THE KNOW about Psychiatric Service Dogs and Emotional Support Animals

Maeve and I love working in the northwest region of CT. The Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services staff are terrific and it's the location of a fabulous ICCD clubhouse -- Prime Time. We did an in-service for DMHAS staff (and at least one from Prime Time) last Thursday in Torrington CT and it was great!

While Maeve and I provided a lot of information to the attendees, we can take little credit for their enthusiasm about helping people with psychiatric disabilities get animals.  First, they love animals.  It's a good thing Maeve has thick hair -- she was petted so much she'd have bald spots if she were a lesser dog.  Second, they clearly love the people they serve. Their eyes lit up whenever we talked about them helping those people use their rights under federal law to get pets in no-pets housing without deposits or fees.

I was particularly thrilled by their response when I mentioned the author of my favorite essay, "Each time I recover enough, I borrow a dog," Larry Davidson, Ph.D. When I mentioned his name, they nearly cheered, "Oh yes! The Recovery Guy!"  I had just finished reading his book, A Practical Guide to Recovery-Oriented Practice: Tools for Transforming Mental Health Care. Until reading this book I had never felt comfortable using the term "recovery" to describe what I've done with my life since my  bipolar disorder became so disabling that I could no longer work. 

During the in-service, we talked about the rights of people with psychiatric disabilities to travel through their lives accompanied by their service dogs in virtually every place the public is allowed (under the Americans with Disabilities Act), to emotional support animals (pets) in no-pets housing without deposits or fees (under the Fair Housing Act). We also spoke about the rights of people with service dogs to bring them into hospitals and doctors offices, including the endorsement of this by the Center for Disease Control. I also talked about the impact that training and being accompanied by Maeve has made in my own life.  

There was one more bit of satisfaction I got during our presentation. Maeve and I did similar presentations last year for the members and staff of PrimeTime and for our Advocacy Unlimited mental health advocacy class in Torrington.  A staff member from Prime Time who was taking a Recovery University course offered by Advocacy Unlimited knew all the answers to the questions about the rights to animals granted by the ADA and FHA.  He'd just been tested on them in his RU course.  I hadn't been aware that this information had been incorporated into the Advocacy Unlimited courses and was thrilled to hear about it.

If you're involved with an organization that works with people with psychiatric disabilities, an educational organization that trains people to do such work, or any organization that might be interested in learning more about these rights, please see our webpage on our U.S. tour and our Contact Us page. We'd love to hear from you!

Psychiatric Service Dog Mistaken for Stuffed Toy

"OMG! It's a real dog!"

 We were in Cafemantic in Willimantic, CT. I was sipping a delicious ginger lemongrass infusion and researching lCCD clubhouses in Virginia for our 2012 Q1 cross-country tour. Maeve was doing her job--lying quiet and still  beside me with the lingering essence of a Trader Joe's gourmet peanut butter dog cookie on her tongue.

 After the young lady recovered her composure she got to meet Maeve and she and her companion peppered me with questions.  They weren't familiar with service dogs other than guide dogs for the blind.

 As soon as I finished with that I entered Cafemantic into into Maeve's Business Honor Role as our 100th inductee! They also got a Two Paws Up designation.

Today's view from our mobile office

A rainy day in suburban CT.

Today's view from our mobile office

3,000 miles minimum! We're starting to plan our first cross-country tour . . . .

Maeve writes about a day on the road in her blog . . . .

http://servicepoodle.blogspot.com/2011/10/day-in-service-dog-advocate-life.html

We Love CT Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services ...

And they've asked us to do another in-service training in their NW Region. We'll be talking to their staff on November 17 about the rights of their clients/consumers to Emotional Support Animals (pets) in no-pets housing without deposit or fee and about Psychiatric Service Dogs.

Maeve's Friend Indeed

Today was the one day out of 100 I absolutely need Maeve with me in the woods.
This is day two of a migraine. As expected, the pain and nausea were significantly less than day one's.
What was not as expected were the more unusual neurological symptoms. We were two and a half miles into a four and a half mile hike when I realized I shouldn't have gone into the woods.
Maeve handled it like the pro she is. She slowed her pace and led me down the trail. She trotted back to touch me periodically, which helped me ground myself and focus on the trail. Without her I would have been likely to walk off the trail or take a wrong turn.

Maeve Goes Walkabout

Maeve really earned her kibble today. This week has been hard. The new Maevemobile has been delivered to Freightliner, but they've had some difficulty doing their alterations. This means we're stuck camping in our minivan for a longer time. We had to come back to Connecticut from a beautiful weekend at the beach in Rhode Island a day early to make decisions about the work on the Maevemobile. The last two days in Rhode Island I had a migraine. Yesterday we went back to camping in Rhode Island, but it rained heavily again and again. This morning I woke with another migraine. I'm also fighting a swing into depression and I'd slept almost 12 hours--both a sign and an amplifier of bipolar depression..

Maeve decided we needed fun. She started lobbying me as I made my morning coffee.  First she came up and leaned on me to get some affection. Then she kept pawning my knee (which is how she tells me she needs something). I tried taking her for a short walk so she could poop, but she was having none of it. She jumped, twirled, bit the leash, and started to growl and "attack" me.  This is her way of saying, "No, stupid Joanne. We need POODLE FUN!"

I made her wait while I had a second coffee to help tame the migraine. I put on my pack and we headed out to the Walkabout Trail that begins and ends at the George Washington campground in Rhode Island.. While the CCC worked in this campground during the Great Depression, we were going to benefit from the work of idle foreigners. The Walkabout Trail was built in 1965 by a shipload of Australian sailors who were waiting for their new vessel. It's a 6-mile circle trail, but has several trails that cut through it to allow shorter circuit hikes. I fully intended to use one of these trails to shorten our hike, but Maeve "talked" me out of it. We did the whole circuit.  There were almost no hills, but we had to hike through several swamps where the trail was flooded due to all the rain we've had.

I'm physically tired and my hips are aching, but as a result of our "Walkabout" I had the energy to cook my favorite dinner and to write this post  tonight. Thank you Maeve!

Wolf den sounds dangerous--let's skip it