Many would say that dogs are angels on Earth and it’s hard to argue because when they come into our lives, they bring only joy and protect us from whatever evil comes our way.
They support us not only emotionally, but they are actually essential in assisting people with impaired eyesight and people who have epilepsy. However, not everyone knows of the important medical role they play in someone’s life and this woman had to go through a seizure without her service dog because her friend didn’t like it.
More info: Reddit
Some have dogs because it's fun and they love them, while other dogs are there to protect their owners' health, but this one wasn't allowed
Image credits: Forest Service, USDA (not the actual photo)
The dog is supposed to support her owner during her epileptic seizures but a woman from her friend group didn't want it in her home
Image credits: Rusty Clark ~ 100K Photos (not the actual photo)
The woman never believed that the dog was a true necessity and was convinced those seizures could be controlled
Image credits: Games for Change (not the actual photo)
The dog owner didn't want the fight to continue and agreed to leave her service dog in the back yard
Image credits: Presidencia de la República Mexicana (not the actual photo)
Unfortunately, she experienced a seizure that her dog would have warned her about and that caused her to get a concussion with a trip to the hospital
Image credits: throwaway9876402
The friend group ostracized the woman and now she and her mom are texting the dog owner demanding that she fix the situation
The Original Poster (OP) has epilepsy and has seizures regularly. Some of them are more mild and people surrounding her wouldn’t even notice them, while others are more serious and more similar to what we imagine a seizure looks like, which includes losing consciousness.
To know when a seizure is coming, the OP has her dog Bailey to help. She is fully trained and licensed as a service dog who warns the woman when a seizure is coming so she can find a safe place to have it without getting injured. In the comments the OP said that “She’ll stay with me while I’m having them and ensure I don’t get up until it's safe to do so.”
You don’t really do anything separate from dogs with this duty because you never know when a seizure is coming and the dog does. But one of the people in her friend group doesn’t get that to be safe, the OP needs to take her dog everywhere.
That is why she freaked out when the woman brought Bailey to her house to a friend get-together. The friend was angry that the OP didn’t ask her if she could bring her dog and if she can’t live without it, then she shouldn't have come.
Bored Panda reached out to Vincent, a tutor at the Service Dog Training School and he explained that in most countries laws that prohibit discrimination against service dog users usually apply for both public locations and private homes, "However, a private homeowner can think of other reasons why they do not want to welcome a service dog and these reasons can be valid."
He agrees that "Since the person with the service dog was going to visit a private home she should have asked if she can bring the dog out of courtesy. Moreover, the service dog user appears to have been aware of the host's distrust of dogs."
When you’ve known a person for years and know that they have a dog that detects seizures which they have regularly, you might assume that they will come with the dog when you invite them over. At least, the OP thought so and didn’t think to warn her about Bailey.
When the host started berating the woman, other friends tried defending the OP, but she gave in and left Bailey outside. When Bored Panda contacted the Redditor, she told us that at the first she considered leaving but she felt that it would be an inconvenience, "I obviously can’t drive so I would of had to make my friend leave as well."
But staying was not a very smart decision as the OP said both in the story and told Bored Panda as she actually experienced a seizure and smashed her head on the floor so hard that she had to go to the hospital, "I should've left though. It was extremely stupid and irresponsible of me to take a risk like that. Bailey is in my life for a reason and I should of just gone home."
Vincent stresses that "A service dog user should not be separated from their dog for too long especially if the disabled person has cardiac problems, seizures or diabetes. A service dog can help alert their user of a potentially life-threatening medical emergency."
And looking from an outsider's perspective, he agrees that the woman shouldn't have allowed Bailey to be separated from her, and although he realizes that "the service dog user would like to socialize as much as possible given her condition" it was safer to leave.
But the good news is that the OP is feeling better now, "I’m feeling much better. I was able to go home from the hospital the same night. Obviously I’ve had to be really mindful with my concussion but I’m healing and doing way better."
You would think that the friend felt guilty for putting a person who is close to them in such danger, but instead she and her family started texting vile messages to the OP about having a seizure on purpose to prove her point after the friend group didn’t want to hang out with her due to her toxic behavior.
Actually, they cut her out from the friend group and that was the reason the woman’s family were writing her messages demanding that she fix the situation. The woman told us, "I ended up blocking my ex friend and her family. It wasn’t worth the drama to me. I sent her a last text essentially saying that I’m sorry our friends have decided to cut contact but this is not my fault. I wish her the best but I’m done with the friendship. "
She also talked with the friend group about the situation, "They’ve told me it’s been a long time coming and just hate how she treats people. This was kinda just the final straw I guess so no one has contact with her anymore."
The tutor at the Service Dog Training School isn't aware of these kinds of situations when students "have reported significant altercations with friends and service providers in terms of accepting the service dog." He added, "I have had only one student who had problems with their family not trusting the dog but that case is very rare (fortunately)." But he wouldn't put the blame on the OP about this particular situation, "I would assume that the service dog user showed respect to the game night's host and she is a kind person."
Image credits: cottonbro studio (not the actual photo)
The thing that bothered the OP was that she saw that the ex-friend actually believed the dog was just for show, for attention and not necessary. Vincent told us that some people "need service dogs to function normally, go out with friends, visit their family and have better control over their life." And he hopes that "society will become more receptive to owner-trained service dogs that change and sometimes save lives."
The friend didn't understand why the woman needed the dog and felt embarrassed every time she laid down to prevent getting a concussion from her seizure because in her understanding, seizures are something that can be controlled.
That is completely untrue because by definition, a seizure is “a sudden, uncontrolled burst of electrical activity in the brain.” You can manage the seizures caused by epilepsy and have fewer of them by taking medicine, having brain surgery, getting vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) or deep brain stimulation (DBS). A ketogenic diet also can help and there are other complementary therapies, but in reality, nothing can keep away a seizure for certain.
Among other things, epilepsy seizures and seizures in general are dangerous because they “can cause car crashes when they strike someone who’s driving. They can cause people to fall and hit their head or suffer a serious injury, too.” It is because people don’t really feel when a seizure is coming until it’s already started.
But dogs actually can, at least most of the time. According to the Epilepsy Foundation, a seizure dog may actually be more useful “in assisting a person during or after a seizure, but is not guaranteed to be able to ‘alert’ a person of an oncoming seizure.”
Actually, dogs are not trained to alert about a seizure. Instead they are trained to alert family members or caregivers when a person is already having a seizure.
They are trained to “lie next to someone having a seizure to prevent injury” and “to put their body between the seizing individual and the floor to break the fall at the start of a seizure.”
Another thing seizure dogs are trained for is to “to activate some kind of pre-programmed device, such as a pedal that rings an alarm.”
As psychologist Stanley Coren who specializes in the human-animal bond said, “Dogs can't be trained to predict seizures simply because we have not known what information the dogs are using to know that a seizure is about to occur.”
Somehow they still sense it and they will warn their owners about it. The poster of the story is proof as she didn’t complain about Bailey ever missing a seizure, and there are more known cases, so you can’t deny that they sense something.
Scientists theorize that maybe they are able to detect minor changes in human behavior or the way they move. Maybe they sense a change of smell that occurs because of metabolic stress before the seizure or they actually feel the magnetic effects as a seizure is caused by “a burst of uncontrolled electrical activity between brain cells.“
It’s quite fascinating how dogs are so sensitive to such things and how essential for some people they are for survival. It’s a shame that not everyone is aware of it, but do you think that it’s the service dog owner’s job to educate people?
Do you think the OP should have warned the host about bringing her dog? Or do you think it was just common sense that she would because they have known each other for a long time? Let us know in the comments.
Readers thought it was good riddance and were sorry that the dog owner was injured
