Sandi Martin, RN, always wanted a dog. But as manager of a Salt Lake City hospital’s intensivecare burn unit, she had a demanding job with unpredictable hours. Plus, during her free time, she gave talks at professional meetings on critical care and ethics. It was the job or a dog.

Martin chose a dog.

In 1999, she resigned from her job at the hospital and took a position with a community outreach program with a less stressful work schedule. She cut back on her presentations and bought a house. Then she started to look for a dog.

On one of her weekend outings, she went to the Salt Lake County Animal Shelter. She hadn’t intended to adopt a puppy, but when she saw a playful little Portuguese Water Dog with big feet, a big head and a tail that bent over her back, Martin fell in love. The pup, who had been at the shelter for 10 days, was scheduled to be euthanized the following Monday. Martin took her home and named her Olivia.

A little while after Olivia came into her life, Martin was talking with Kathy Klotz, the director of Intermountain Therapy Animals (ITA), which had developed programs that brought dogs into therapeutic settings. At the hospital, Martin had seen firsthand how children with burns responded in a positive way to the ITA dogs.

In Martin’s experience, many of these children lacked focus, didn’t look forward to doing any of the tasks they were given and generally had low self-esteem across the board. But when they interacted with therapy animals, they seemed to develop more confidence in themselves. They forgot their limitations. Their focus improved, and they became more interested and involved in what they were asked to do.

Thinking about the remarkable turnarounds the dogs facilitated, the proverbial light bulb went off in Martin’s head. Could dogs do the same for children who had trouble reading? The next day, she called Klotz and arranged to meet up so she could run her idea past her.

Over coffee, Martin explained what she wanted to do: A lot of children with reading problems weren’t performing up to their grade level because they lacked confidence and self-esteem. Maybe letting them interact with a dog while they were reading would help them in the same way dogs were helping burn victims.

Their next step was to talk to the city library’s staff. Klotz says they thought the idea was “wacko,” but they listened. Nothing like it had ever been done. What if it worked? What if bringing dogs into the library and having them listen to children read aloud would make them more confident? It didn’t take long to find out.

Dog Day Afternoons

In November 1999, Martin and Klotz got permission to start a “Dog Day Afternoons.” It began with six children and six animals: five dogs (Olivia among them) and one cat. One of the first children who agreed to sit down with Olivia was a seven-year-old boy. Before he started, he looked at his shoes and in a quiet voice said, “I don’t read very well.”

“That’s okay,” Martin told him. “Olivia doesn’t either, but she loves to listen.”

Reluctantly, the boy began reading softly, turning to Olivia after every word. The next week, he brought his “Spot” book with him and read it to Olivia, pronouncing half the words correctly, a big improvement from the previous week. On the fourth week, he rushed into the library and in a loud voice announced, “Olivia, program at the local library called I’ve got a really cool book to read to you.”

Other children had equally remarkable experiences. A young girl who didn’t want to take part in the program but was persuaded to do so by her grandmother improved so much that a few years later, she won her school’s essay contest. The title of her essay was “Why Would You Want to Read to a Dog?”

There were other success stories. A sixth-grade boy who had recently come from Bosnia walked into the room with his hands behind his back. Though he wouldn’t come up to the dogs, he asked questions. Martin asked him if he would like to pet one of the dogs.

“I can’t,” he said. “It’s against my religion.” The boy was Muslim, and devout Muslims are taught that dogs are not to be touched. Martin was surprised—she wasn’t aware of this prohibition—but said he didn’t have to touch the dog; he could just read to him. Reluctantly, the boy sat down next to one of the dogs and began reading. The boy returned every week, selecting the same dog each time but never petting him. As with all the children in the program, there was a noticeable improvement in his reading. Later that year, the students in his class were asked to write an essay on what they wanted to be when they grew up. The boy who wasn’t allowed to touch dogs wrote that he wanted to be a veterinarian.

Next, Martin approached local elementary schools. Many of the teachers were skeptical, but after principals gave their approval, some agreed to participate. Once a week for 20 minutes, children who were having difficulty sat down with Olivia or one of the other dogs in the program and read aloud to them. The teachers could see an immediate improvement. At the end of the year, some had improved by two to four reading grades. Children who used to slide down in their chairs when it came time for reading aloud would now raise their hands. Teachers were delighted.

There were also some unexpected benefits. Concerned about a little girl’s bad breath, Martin made an appointment for her with the school dentist. Although Martin thought cavities might be the cause, it turned out to be a more easily remedied problem: the girl wasn’t brushing her teeth.

As a way to introduce the subject of brushing, Martin asked the girl if Olivia had dog breath. The girl sniffed Olivia’s mouth and said that no, she didn’t. Martin told the girl that Olivia brushed her teeth every day, then offered to bring the girl a toothbrush and toothpaste so she could brush too. The girl agreed, and Martin gave her the book Dog Breath to read to Olivia. The next time the girl saw Olivia, she blew at her and said proudly, “See, Olivia, I don’t have dog breath anymore.”

Sadly, Olivia succumbed to cancer when she was a little more than two years old. By then attached to Portuguese Water Dogs, Martin adopted another one, named her Zelda and incorporated her into the reading program. When Salt Lake City opened its new library in 2003, Zelda pulled the opening ribbon.

What started out as a specialized local effort is now Reading Education Assistance Dogs ® (R.E.A.D.) and has branches across the United States and Canada. As part of Intermountain Therapy Animals, registered R.E.A.D. teams can also be found in Europe and South Africa.

Reading With Rover

In Washington state, Becky Bishop, owner of a dog-therapy business in Woodinville, heard about the R.E.A.D. program at her local library. Bishop and her dogs visited people in hospice, and she noticed that while the people felt better after a visit, the dogs seemed to come away somewhat depressed. In 2000, looking for a way to perk up her dogs, she wondered if a library reading program for children might also be therapeutic for her dogs. Bishop described what happened next in an article in Edutopia magazine.

As soon as she brought her dogs to the library, both the children and the dogs lit up. Parents told her about the improvements their children had made in reading aloud after coming to the library every Saturday to read to the dogs, and her dogs seemed to be much less depressed after interacting with the children.

When teachers heard about the program, many wanted to bring dogs into their classrooms, but there was a problem: not all school districts allow dogs in the classroom. Not willing to give up, these teachers discovered that if they could get the dogs and their trainers screened and certified, the school district would relent. The dogs have become “rock stars” for the children, says Brian Daly, one of the teachers who got his school district to let him bring dogs into his second-grade class.

Bishop’s program, loosely based on R.E.A.D., is now known as Reading With Rover. The community-based nonprofit has more than 75 dog-and-trainer teams that regularly visit libraries, bookstores and, yes, schools in the Seattle area.

How It Works

School programs involving R.E.A.D. are highly structured. Dogs are carefully screened for temperament and then given special obedience training before they become reading buddies. Reading specialists choose the children they believe will benefit the most, and each child is paired with a dog.

Typically, the reader and his/her dog spend about 30 minutes together. First they play, then they sit on the floor and the child begins to read. Afterward, children are welcome to play with their dogs. The same dog meets with the child each time, which helps them develop a trusting and secure relationship. Sometimes, children and their dog listeners get together during school hours, sometimes after. It’s important that the two spend time away from other children so that the child doesn’t have to worry about being criticized.

The dog handlers sit in and gently help the child with mispronounced words and meanings. One of the ways they do this is by telling the child that the dog hasn’t heard that word before and asks if they can explain it. That way the child is less embarrassed because he or she hasn’t made a mistake —it’s the dog who doesn’t understand. The child moves from passive reader to active teacher.

Psychologists who specialize in reading tell us that children who don’t read as well as their peers often are frightened about reading aloud. When called upon to read in class, they’re intimidated. Because they find the experience stressful, something to be avoided, they scrunch down in their chairs, trying to be invisible. Not surprisingly, this usually leads to low self-esteem.

When children interact with dogs, there’s no peer pressure. They don’t feel intimidated. They’re not laughed at. They’re totally accepted. That in turn helps them forget about their limitations. The whole idea behind children reading to dogs is to get them to relax so that reading becomes fun.

A 1983 study conducted at the University of Pennsylvania monitored the blood pressures and heart rates of 38 children ages 9 to 15 as they read silently, to an adult and to an adult accompanied by a dog. It showed that having a dog in the room definitely reduces the stress children feel when they read aloud.

The payoff comes in the amount of fun they have during the process and, ultimately, how much learning goes on. When children are asked why they like reading to dogs, they say it’s because the dogs listen to them.

What more could anyone want?

For the past couple of decades researchers have been looking at the role that pets, especially dogs, have to play in rates of allergies in children. Many have found that, what is being termed the hygiene hypothesis, is indeed correct, meaning that a little dirt early in life helps to stave allergic diseases, including obesity.

A new study by Anita Kozyrskyj a pediatric epidemiologist of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, found further evidence of this dog-human linkage and how this lessens the development of everything from obesity to asthma.

Starting in 2013 she wondered if she could pinpoint what and how this might be happening. Her team collected fecal samples from 4-month-old infants in the Canadian Healthy Infant Longitudinal Development (CHILD) pilot study. Of the 24 respondent infants, 15 lived in house with at least a dog or cat.

What they found was that within the households with pets, the children had a higher diversity of microbes in their guts. Microbes, as we now know, can be a good thing for our gut microbiome and immune systems actually develop alongside our gut’s “germs.”  Meaning that if babies grow in a more “sterile” pet-free environment, they would be more unprepared to “fight” germs as they grow up.

Kozyrskyj noted, "The abundance of these two bacteria (Firmicutes microbes) were increased twofold when there was a pet in the house," and added that the pet exposure was shown to affect the gut microbiome indirectly—from dog to mother to unborn baby—during pregnancy as well as during the first three months of the baby's life.

Also interestingly, this study suggested that the presence of pets in the house reduced the likelihood of the transmission of vaginal GBS (group B Strep) during birth, which causes pneumonia in newborns and is prevented by giving mothers antibiotics during delivery.

Kozyrskyj’s study confirms and expands on the work that many other researchers have shown that some “dirt” can be beneficial and help to ward off disease. Including one, conducted at Kuopio University Hospital in Finland in 2012, that concentrated on infants during their first year, and investigated the effect of contact with dogs on the “frequency of respiratory symptoms and infections.” Information about the length of time a dog spent indoors was also gathered, and turned out to be one of the key indicators.

The results were eye-opening. Children with dogs at home were healthier overall, had fewer infectious respiratory problems, fewer ear infections and were less likely to require antibiotics. Researchers considered these results supportive of the theory that children who live with dogs during their early years have better resistance throughout childhood. They also found that the effect was greater if the dog spent fewer than six hours inside, possibly because the longer dogs are outdoors, the more dirt they bring inside with them. The more dirt, the more “bacterial diversity.” This diversity is thought to have a protective influence by helping the child’s immune system to mature — that is, respond more effectively to infectious agents.

Then a 2013 study conducted by the University of California, San Francisco, and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, found that living with dogs may prevent children from developing asthma. Mice fed a solution containing dust from homes with dogs developed a resistance to respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), a childhood airway infectious agent. RSV, which is common in infants, is linked to a higher risk of childhood asthma. According to Dr. Susan Lynch of the study team, “Exposing the gastrointestinal tract to pet dust and other microbes early in life prepares it to respond appropriately to a variety of invaders. But since our modern lifestyles involve living in immaculate houses, our immune systems often overreact instead.” Early childhood is a critical period for developing protection against allergies and asthma, and exposure to pets can help.

The idea that our microorganisms may to some extent be collectively beneficial is intriguing. People and dogs have been exchanging microbes for at least 30,000 years, since the first little cave girl kissed the first proto-dog puppy smack on the muzzle. That’s a long history of sharing. It’s possible that our microorganisms are at least symbiotic, and perhaps even played a role in the dramatic domestication of the dog. 

As was reported in Nature: Researchers suspect that our long association with canines means that human and dog microbiomes may have developed in tandem. The microbiome of a baby growing up without a dog (and of a puppy growing up without a human) is, in a sense, incomplete. “All of the people alive today probably had ancestors who lived in tribes that hunted with dogs,” says Jack Gilbert, director of the Microbiome Center at the University of Chicago in Illinois.”

Since 2013, Canadian researcher, Kozyrskyj has expanded her pilot study from 24 to 746 infants, around half of whom were living in households with pets. Her team then compared the babies' microbial communities.

The results were basically the same, microbial life flourished in the infants living with pets. And not only that but the “team was now able to show that babies from families with pets (70% of which were dogs) had higher levels of two types of Firmicutes microbes — Ruminococcus and Oscillospira, which have been associated with a lower risk of allergic disease and leanness, respectively.

“Pet exposure can reduce allergic disease and obesity” later in life, added Hein Min Tun, a veterinarian and microbial epidemiologist and a member of Kozyrskyj’s research team.

And while it might be too soon to predict how this finding will play out in the future, they don’t rule out the concept of a “dog in a pill” as a preventive tool for allergies and obesity. Or, as we much rather see, “dog as the pill.”

In A Stray, Adan, a young, homeless Somali immigrant played by Barkhad Abdiarhman (Captain Phillips) is paired with a homeless dog. This compelling film, written and directed by Musa Syeed, is only his second narrative feature. Syeed, clearly influenced by the neo-realism of the great Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray, chose to center his story in a community of Muslim Somalians living in Minnesota’s Twin Cities.

In this society, Adan is on his own, unfocused and confused. Similar to many refugees, he tries to assimilate, although he’s not sure what that really means, as well as to stay in touch with his own culture and religion. Then, while on a job delivering food, he hits a stray dog, played with charming realism by Ayla, a Terrier mix.

The dog is uninjured, but then Adan, with no resources of his own, is burdened not only by a creature who needs to be cared for but also, one his religion considers unclean. Adan feels helpless in this situation, ill-equipped to know what’s best for himself or for the dog. Slowly, we see Adan growing into a kinder, more focused person, a change inspired, perhaps, by the incipient bond he forges with the dog and his efforts to do the right thing by her.

This film provides the viewer with insight into a social milieu with which most of us are entirely unfamiliar, that of refugees and their struggle to survive in American communities. Also, in a revelatory scene, into the Native American community; each group finds it difficult to understand the other’s “outsider” status. The film’s ending is influenced by a lesson an imam shares with Adan: A man was wandering in the desert and finally found water, but near the well, there was a thirsty dog. The man filled his shoe to give water to the dog before drinking some himself, and God granted the man heaven.

We spoke with the film’s writer/ director, Musa Syeed, and Ayla’s handler/ owner, Karen Radford, to find out more about what informs their work.

Bark: What inspired this film?

Musa Syeed: My wife found a stray dog shortly after we got married. We are both Muslim, and we were raised to believe that dogs are dirty—you can’t touch them and that kind of thing. Over the weeks we had the dog, I unexpectedly developed a relationship with her. She was a black Lab/ German Shepherd mix, and was such a happy puppy after my wife nursed her back to health. But we were moving to another state, so we decided to take her to the shelter. I had a connection with her, even though I had to give her up. I had this regret, and I started to look at this attitude toward dogs. It isn’t just a religious thing; there are lots of layers to it, and I wanted to make a film about that.

Bark: How did you come to incorporate the dog into the film, and as such an important character?

Musa: I wanted to write a story about a Muslim kid and a dog, like those typical classic American stories. We all grew up reading White Fang and those kinds of books, and I wanted to tell that story from a new perspective, reflecting the new America, in a way. I had that idea in the back of my mind. I also wanted to tell a story about the Minneapolis Somali community and the thematic connection between this community of refugees that’s trying to make a home for itself and a dog who also needs a home. For me, the interesting thing is how unlikely pairings such as these happen and how they find a way to connect, and to love each other in a way, despite the barriers between them. In this case, the question was, how can you love something you can’t touch? That was something I thought was an interesting challenge to show, and it is something that reflects this moment in America. There is a lot of division, and how we bridge it is what’s important to me.

Bark: How did you connect with Karen and her dog Ayla?

Musa: A local [Minneapolis] animal trainer, Debi Pool of Animal Talent Pool, has a catalog of 60 or 70 dogs, and she showed us pictures and some videos. I thought that when we did close-ups, people needed to see the dog’s eyes for that personal connection. Ayla has nice eyes, and her look was really great, her scruffy look; plus, she was the right size to fit into the bag!

Bark: Tell us more about Ayla.

Karen Radford: We adopted Ayla through Secondhand Hounds [Eden Prairie] about five years ago. She was found wandering in a ditch. We don’t know her exact mix, but we speculate Jack Russell and West Highland Terrier. True to her Terrier type, she’s excellent at hunting up vermin, and she still loves wandering in ditches. One of my hobbies is to train dogs for sports like agility and flyball. So although this is Ayla’s acting debut, she was very amenable to training.

Bark: Musa, could you tell us about directors or movies that have influenced your filmmaking?

Musa: There are neo-realism films that focus on a dog, especially Vittorio De Sica’s Umberto D., about an older man and a dog, although in that story, he wanted to get rid of the dog so he could commit suicide. And then there was a 2008 American film, Wendy & Lucy, about a woman who has to give up a dog in order to save herself.

I was inspired by those films, but I think that oftentimes, it’s easy to be sentimental with dogs and to use them to manipulate audiences, to tug at their hearts. I deliberately didn’t push that too hard. In some films, the dog dies or goes through some brutality, and I also didn’t want this film to be about that. I know people will see that this film is about a refugee and a dog and think that something really devastating will happen, but it doesn’t go there. I wanted to tell a story that was more lighthearted and healing for the people watching it.

Bark: Even though we know little of the main characters’ backstories, they feel multidimensional. Was much of the filming off script, or improvised?

Musa: There was some of that. When I wrote the screenplay, there were certain things I thought were simple, things a dog would just do, like barking; I didn’t realize that it’s a skill that has to be trained. So a lot was understanding what we had to prepare Ayla for and, importantly, what she was up for doing. There was a scene where she was supposed to jump and run around and she didn’t feel like it at that moment, so we had to find a way to work around her. She can’t take direction from me. It was more about respecting where she was, and trying to shape scenes to where she wanted to be.

Bark: Karen, how did you go about training Ayla for more scripted scenes —for example, when she needed to jump into the bag?

Karen: We didn’t have much time between when we were selected and when we shot the film, so we worked on the basics. For the bag-jumping, she had breakfast in her bag every morning. I have another dog, and they would have a competition to see who got to be in the bag. We made that bag really rewarding. We practiced throwing a shirt over her, having different people pick her up, having her ride with someone in a wheelchair. The challenge was that we didn’t know what would happen from day to day, or where the scenes would be filmed, so we didn’t have a chance to visit beforehand. As Musa said, we just had to work with the challenge that dogs don’t generalize. Even if I had her do a behavior at home, that didn’t mean she would do it the same way in an apartment or in a park.

Bark: There’s a scene where Adan bathes Ayla in a bucket. Did you have to train specifically for that?

Karen: One of the challenges of that scene was that she wasn’t allowed to shake [the water coming off her is considered “unclean”]. I can’t take credit for actually teaching Ayla not to shake when wet. However, I taught her a rock solid “watch me,” which we used when she had to stand unattended in the bucket, and I taught Barkhad how to handle her when he was bathing her so she wouldn’t shake all over him. After the scene was done and Barkhad was out of range, Ayla was allowed to shake to her heart’s content.

Musa: Karen brought that bucket to the set. I have to commend her for being more than just the owner/ trainer. She helped with props and other things. It made the movie better —having someone on-set like that to collaborate was really great.

Bark: Tell us about the cultural divide over the concept of pet-keeping.

Musa: There are differences in opinion within Islamic law about the impurity of the dog, and that can often be exaggerated. It comes less from the religion itself than from cultural practices and not being exposed to dogs. Also, when immigrant families have to feed themselves, pet-keeping seems like a luxury. Besides religion, there’s a racial/cultural component. And then at the end, people have to realize that keeping the dog is harder for him than it is for other people, not just because of religion but also because of social and economic factors. So I hope that people see that there are layers to that choice, and appreciate it.

Update: On Wednesday, February 22, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with Ehlena Fry, the disabled Michigan girl whose school refused to let her bring her service dog Wonder to class. The decision, am 8–0 ruling by the justices, makes it easier for students with special needs to seek redress for discrimination in federal court. The justices sent the case back to a lower appeals court to determine whether Ehlena’s complaint involves the impermissible denial of a proper special education. Learn more about Ehlena and Wonder in the article below.

Devyn Pereira and Hannah, her service dog, move through their day as one. Clipped to Hannah’s harness, the nine-year-old is both safe and as independent as possible. If Devyn tries to roam, the 110-pound, white Bouvier des Flandres sits down, stopping the child with the weight of her body.

Before Hannah came into her life five years ago, the little girl had to be carried or transported by wheelchair to the school bus loop. Now, she walks beside Hannah. The dog is also trained to detect seizures and alert adults so medication can be administered.

Devyn was born with Angelman Syndrome, a rare neurological disorder that affects speech and mobility, and causes developmental delays, autism and seizures. The Gates Chili Central School District, located in a suburb of Rochester, N.Y., permits Hannah to accompany Devyn to school, as long as her mother pays for a dog handler. Heather Pereira’s position is that her daughter is Hannah’s handler, and she only needs minimal assistance from school staff (a one-on-one school aide and a nurse are also with Devyn daily).

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) agreed, and in September 2015, sued the school district for violating Devyn’s civil rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). School officials refused to comply. On August 7, U.S. District Court Judge Charles J. Siragusa dismissed the school district’s motion for a summary judgment (a method for promptly disposing of legal actions that are without merit). This means the case will go forward.

“People ask me all the time, why do you think the school is doing this? Why do you think that they are making this so difficult?” says Pereira. “When Gates disregarded what the DOJ said, it became clear this isn’t a matter of ignorance, it is blatant defiance … Devyn’s school is using her disability against her. Her level of delay does not erase her rights. It does not make her less worthy of the compassion and respect all parents want for their children.”

Legal Wrangles

Most children are able to bring their service dogs to school without a hitch, according to Ron Hager, senior staff attorney with the Washington, D.C.- based National Disability Rights Network. But families who face prolonged resistance from school districts find themselves spending enormous amounts of time and, in some cases, money trying to convince school administrators to allow these service animals in their classrooms.

The number of legal disputes between families and school districts over this issue has increased in the last five years, says Hager. In the fall, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case involving Ehlena Fry, a 12-year-old Jackson, Mich., girl with cerebral palsy who was banned from bringing her Goldendoodle service dog, Wonder, to class.

“Our case is specifically about whether people bringing disability cases have to jump through a lot of administrative hoops first,” says Michael J. Steinberg, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, which brought the suit with the Frys. Steinberg says he is confident about the outcome of the Supreme Court case, noting that a child with a disability should not have to choose between her education and her independence. “Give Ehlena her day in court and we will prove that the district violated the ADA,” he says.

In some instances, school officials have prohibited a service dog on the basis that the district was already meeting all of the student’s educational needs. However, preventing children from bringing their service dogs to school disrupts the special bond between handler and animal, says Tiffany Denyer, founder of Wilderwood Service Dogs in Maryville, Tenn. “It doesn’t work unless you send the dogs to work.”

When Fairfax County School District in Virginia refused to allow Andrew Stevens, who has severe epilepsy and is developmentally delayed, to take his German Shepherd service dog, Alaya, to school in 2010, his family reached out to the national media, even appearing on The Today Show. When interviewed by the media, Kim Dockery, Fairfax County Public Schools assistant superintendent, said she was concerned about keeping Andrew and the other students safe. The district ultimately allowed Alaya to accompany Andrew. “I think they’re afraid of new things they don’t understand,” says Angelo Stevens, Andrew’s dad.

Reasonable Accommodations

Heather Pereira began advocating for her daughter’s right to take her service dog to school six years ago. When she talks about the ongoing conflict with Gates Chili school officials, you can hear the weariness in her voice, but the determination is still there, too. In 2011, the district allowed Hannah to accompany the preschooler to school; then, that summer, Pereira was informed that in order for the service dog to continue to be permitted in school, she would have to pay for a dog handler. Pereira complied, but she also hired a disability rights attorney and ultimately filed a complaint with the DOJ’s civil rights division.

In September 2013, two investigators traveled to Rochester to interview Pereira, school administrators and classroom staff. Nearly two years later, the DOJ found that the district was in violation of ADA requirements and ordered it to reverse its policy and pay more than $25,000 in damages. The New York State Education Department also found in Pereira’s favor.

This battle could prove pricey for the upstate New York school district. From October 2013 to May 2015, Gates Chili incurred more than $34,000 in legal expenses related to the case, according to documents obtained by the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle newspaper through a Freedom of Information Act request.

A detailed report revealed how the DOJ reached its finding:

“Since D.P. began working with her service dog, she has learned to communicate with the dog through hand gestures and signals. Her service dog interrupts certain behaviors caused by her autism (such as meltdowns, wandering and repeated body movements). Her service dog also alerts adults to oncoming seizures so they can take precautions before the seizure occurs. In short, with the help of her service dog, D.P. is both safer and more independent at school.”

The federal agency also found that requiring staff members to unhook Devyn from the dog from time to time and to occasionally remind her to issue a command were “minimal and reasonable accommodations.”

Two weeks later, the school district challenged the ruling and filed an appeal.

“It’s extremely rare for a school district to fight the federal government. To actually litigate—I’ve never seen it,” says Ron Hager, who has been a disability rights attorney for decades. Gates Chili Superintendent of Schools Kimberle Ward declined a request for comment, saying that she could not speak on a pending matter.

The school district just doesn’t get it, says Kristin Small of the Empire Justice Center in Rochester, one of Pereira’s lawyers. “It does not get to choose how Devyn Pereira, as a person with a disability, travels through this world. That is Devyn’s choice alone, or her mother’s, as long as she is a minor,” she says. “Just as it would not be permitted to tell a person in a wheelchair, ‘I know you prefer to use the wheelchair, but … just try crutches instead,’ it is not appropriate to say to this child’s mother, ‘I know you would like her to bring the dog, but we think she can do fine at school without it.’ The fact that Devyn’s use of a service animal is an inconvenience to the school district is irrelevant. If the school can reasonably accommodate that choice, it must do so.”

Waiting for Justice

Hannah was trained at Tiffany Denyer’s Wilderwood Service Dogs, which specializes in providing service dogs for people with neurological diseases, including autism, psychiatric disorders, dementia, PTSD and brain injuries. According to Denyer, “About half the dogs are rescues; the rest come from breeders we have relationships with.” She looks for dogs who enjoy work, are calm and easily adapt to change.

In 11 years, she has placed about 200 service dogs. Each undergoes roughly 18 months of training; the first six months focus on general tasks; the rest is geared to meet the individual handler’s needs. The dogs learn about 50 commands and are taught to be low maintenance; Hannah goes the entire school day without food, water or having to relieve herself.

Hannah cost $16,000, but some trainers charge $25,000 or more per service dog. Many families, including the Pereiras, fundraise for months in order to purchase a dog. Denyer estimates that 10 to 20 percent of the families she works with have encountered problems getting schools to fully accept their service dogs.

Heather Pereira calls Hannah a “gentle giant.” “She has such a calm, graceful presence, even when Devyn gets ramped up about something,” she says. “Devyn never asks to be untethered from Hannah. That says a lot for their connection.”

This fall, Devyn will enter a fourthgrade special education class. Pereira says she is amazed at the growth she has seen in her daughter, attributing much of it to her connection with Hannah.

“Devyn is doing things with Hannah we never thought she’d be able to do. If Hannah is lying down, she’ll tug on the harness to make her get up. She taps the ground so that Hannah will lie down. Before, Hannah guided Devyn all the time; now, Devyn is the one guiding Hannah.”

As fall approaches, the Pereiras and the Frys wait for justice.

“We hope that the school district realizes they don’t have a strong case and negotiates a settlement,” Pereira says. “The pressure to make this better for Devyn and all who follow is real. Every parent knows they will not be around forever and so we work to create a world that not only accepts our child’s differences, but more importantly, embraces them.”

Update 2/23/2017:

Ehlena and her dog Wonder win in the U.S. Supreme Court. From Reuters:

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday sided with a disabled Michigan girl whose school refused to let her bring her service dog to class, making it easier for students like her to seek redress for discrimination in federal court.

The justices ruled 8-0 that Ehlena Fry, 13, and her parents may not be obligated to go through time-consuming administrative appeals with the local school board before suing for damages for the emotional distress she said she suffered by being denied the assistance of her dog, a goldendoodle named Wonder.

Read more about their victory here.