These remarks analyze the salient features of laws pertaining to service dogs for the physically disabled and current trends in their enforcement in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Korea, Japan, and select European countries (the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Russia, Ireland, Finland, and Slovakia). I attempt to identify recent trends in legislation affecting the accessibility of disabled people to public facilities and public transportation in advanced industrial societies.
In the United States, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) upholds the right of disabled persons accompanied by service animals to access public facilities and transportation and prescribes civil penalties of up to $50,000 for violations of the law. The ADA is enforced by the Department of Justice, particularly the 93 US Attorneys' Offices representing the Federal Government at the district court and court of appeals levels. In the United Kingdom, the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) protects the accessibility rights of service-dog users based on the principle of non-discrimination. The Disability Rights Commission provides the machinery for finding remedies and resolving grievances. In Canada, provincial statutes guarantee accessibility rights to guide-dog users.
In France, the Special Measures Law to Maintain Social Order protects the rights of guide-dog users, stipulating 2000 French Francs in civil penalties for transgressors, and in Italy, similar protections are afforded by the Law Protecting the Rights of Access of Guide-dog Users to Public Transportation and Shops, which specifies fines of between 500 and 2,500 Euros for violators. In Spain, a Cabinet order and provincial statutory laws guarantee accessibility rights, with large civil fines for violations. In Australia, the rights of service animal users are protected by the Disability Discrimination Act, which ordains up to six months' imprisonment for violations.
In New Zealand, guide-dog users are guaranteed accessibility rights by the Human Rights Act, which prescribes up to NZ$3,000 for infringements of the Act. The Dog Control Act also ensures accessibility not only for guide-dog users but also for companion-dog users and trainers, with up to one year's imprisonment for violators. South Korea's Social Welfare Law guarantees guide-dog users access to public places and transportation and imposes up to 2 million won in civil penalties on transgressors.
In Japan, we have the Service-Dog Law for the Physically Disabled, which assures the accessibility of service-dog users to public facilities, working places and housing operated by government agencies, public transportation, and non-governmental facilities, but non-governmental working places and housing remain problem areas requiring further efforts by concerned private agencies. At present, these agencies are not liable to any penalties for violations of the law. Moreover, there is no mechanism for finding remedies to problems or resolving grievance for those to whom access is denied.
Other countries, such as Russia, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland, Finland, and Slovakia, have no specific laws governing the accessibility of guide-dog users to public facilities and transportation per se, but users enjoy de facto access to government buildings, catering facilities, hospitals, cultural facilities, shops, etc. through the goodwill and support of informed staff members.
In conclusion, we note a clear trend in the industrial world toward legalizing the rights of service-dog users to have ready access public facilities and transportation based on the principle of non-discrimination, in accordance with UN international conventions protecting and promoting the rights and dignity of the disabled.

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In Guide Dog training, it is a common practice to perform “Traffic Training” in which guide dog candidates learn to stop immediately when approaching traffic is recognized. However, there are no certain guidelines as to how many traffic training sessions are necessary and how it should be done. In this paper, the main discussion point is as follows; how Guide Dogs learn to recognize and respond to moving cars. In the results, it is observed that untrained dogs have little aversion to moving cars, because most of them have had happy experiences going out in cars with puppy raisers. Also, traffic-trained dogs could respond to moving cars only when the cars approached to within a distance of 1 meter, especially if the traffic was coming from the right, left, or from behind; this result was more obvious (responses were slower) when dogs concentrated on the tasks in front of them, such as curbs and obstacles. From these observations, this paper refers to the following: 1. Guidelines on the distance a guide dog is expected to keep between the dog and car, 2. The possibility of introducing traffic training during puppy scheme, and 3. Important technical advice to visually impaired persons when walking with a guide dog.

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Periodic monitoring of the training for prospective guide dogs for the blind were determined to clarify whether the monitoring is useful in evaluating the potential suitability of the guide dog. We selected 8 dogs as test dogs on the basis of the medical check and pre-training estimation. We monitored the progression of the training every 2 weeks since day 1 of the training. The observation was designed to assess task performance, stress, excitement and concentration for the task. We set the course in a residential district, but in an area that was not used for everyday training. A clear difference was shown in some of the results (tail position, the number of stress reaction and command, concentration of task, and look away where one is going) between the dogs that became guide dogs and the career change dogs. The present study suggests that we were able to find some traits in the early stages of training to determine whether or not a dog may successfully become a guide dog.

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Estimating the cost for training and rearing service dogs is essential in order to stably produce well-trained service dogs. The purpose of this study is to estimate the cost of training and rearing a service dog for recipients. Models have been developed and investigated for three types of recipients' disabilities : 1) thoraco-lumbar cord injury (TLCI), 2) cervical cord injury (CCI) and 3) rheumatoid arthritis (RA). These models estimated the service dogs' lifetime cost based on information provided from training institutions. The costs of service dogs for these model cases are estimated as follows : 3.88-4.58 million yen for TLCI, 4.11-4.81 million yen for CCI, and 4.70-5.39 million yen for RA. These estimates exclude money spent on dogs that did not complete the training program. Differences in cost of service dogs for recipients with different disabilities are due to the service dogs' duration of training, costs of making self-help devices, and service dogs' frequency of re-training. It is important to tailor training programs for service dogs to meet recipients' needs.

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[in Japanese]

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[in Japanese]

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[in Japanese]

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