A disabled boy’s best friend
Dog trained to alert human responders in the event of a medical crisis.
STEVIE is a good dog. He doesn’t eat from the table or have accidents in the house. And he never pulls on his leash. The whiteand-tan Staffordshire terrier also has a special talent: he alerts caregivers when his little boy, Anthony Merchante, is going to have a seizure or has trouble breathing.
Anthony’s mother, Monica Alboniga, tried for two years to persuade the Miami’s Broward County School Board to permit Stevie, a trained service animal, to accompany the seven-year-old on campus. But school administrators repeatedly said Stevie didn’t belong at school. And they hoped that a Fort Lauderdale federal judge would agree with them.
Instead they got a scolding. Recently US District Judge Beth Bloom ruled that Stevie should be allowed to join his human friend at Nob Hill Elementary – and without a series of requirements the school district had tacked on.
Stevie, Alboniga said, “has saved Anthony’s life. I feel completely safe every time he is with the dog, because I know the dog will look for help.”
As the lawsuit progressed in federal court, the school board allowed Stevie to go to school every day, but administrators continued to fight the case.
“The district has always permitted the service dog at the school,” said the district’s spokeswoman, Tracy Clark. Alboniga “pursued the lawsuit as the parties (the district and the plaintiff) differ somewhat in the interpretation of the federal regulations governing service animals. The district’s legal department is reviewing and analysing the order.”
Had the district won, Alboniga’s lawyer said, four-year-old Stevie almost certainly would have been expelled.
Anthony suffers from a host of serious disabilities: he has cerebral palsy, spastic paralysis, a seizure disorder, and he cannot speak. To get around, he depends on a wheelchair, to which Stevie is tethered most of the time.
Alboniga, 37, who is raising her son alone, paid to obtain and train a dog up to the specifications of Assistance Dog International Standards, records say. Stevie can aid caregivers in a variety of ways: he can step onto Anthony’s wheelchair and lay across the boy’s lap; once there, the dog is trained to help stabilise Anthony’s head so his airway isn’t impeded.
“Stevie was also trained to ‘tell’ or ‘alert’ human responders in the event that (Anthony) was experiencing a medical crisis,” Bloom wrote. The dog can jump on a sensor mat that activates an alarm, or bark to get the attention of caregivers. He also wears a red service dog vest that holds medical supplies, as well as detailed instructions on how to respond to medical emergencies.
“Stevie lets me know when he has seizures or problems breathing. He pushes me towards Anthony. He barks,” Alboniga said. “When Anthony is having convulsions, he starts barking and goes looking for us. Then he goes back to Anthony and stays with him.”
At home in Sunrise, Florida, Stevie is also a house pet, although he isn’t all that interested in Anthony’s baby sister, Mariangel, a five-month-old, because he seems to intuitively understand that Anthony is his full-time job. “He loves Anthony,” Alboniga said. “And Anthony loves Stevie, too.”
“He is a very good dog,” Alboniga said. “He is very sweet, and very obedient. He is the best there is.”
All 22kg of Stevie rests next to Anthony in bed each night, and the boy and dog are virtually inseparable. That’s partly by design. It’s best if service animals spend almost all of their time with their “targets”, trainers say, and long separations diminish the animal’s “responsiveness and effectiveness”, Bloom wrote.
For the first four months that Anthony attended Nob Hill Elementary School as a kindergartner, beginning in August 2013, Alboniga worked, at the district’s requirement, as Stevie’s handler herself. Later, the school board appointed a custodian to work as Stevie’s handler.
“While at school,” the judge wrote, “Stevie does not eat or drink. Nor does Stevie defecate or make stains, or require cleaning or exercise.” Alboniga, the judge said, “attends to Stevie’s daily feeding, cleaning and care needs.”
The judge wrote that the dispute pivoted on whether it was reasonable to expect the district to allow Stevie on campus under the federal civil rights law.
The judge ruled that it was indeed reasonable, “in the same way a school would assist a non-disabled child to use the restroom, or assist a diabetic child with her insulin pump, or assist a physically disabled child employ her motorised wheelchair.” — Miami Herald/Tribune News Service