Kitty and Lala

http://www.shortoftheweek.com/2011/06/08/kitty-lala-80-impression/

The documentary that I watched was titled "Kitty & Lala, 80 Impression", which was about Chinese wedding photography and how it has changed. I thought some things that made it a good documentary were the music and video used I felt like went very well together. Also, they gave some good background to photography in China and how it has changed and why they take pictures of newlyweds. There was a good balance of "one-on-one" scenes with Kitty or Lala and other scenes of their surroundings and them at work.The visuals used were very interesting, however sometimes I felt like too many different videos or scenes were being shown at once and they wasn't enough time to truly get a look at all that was going on, which is one thing that I think would make it a better documentary. Overall, the documentary kept my attention, had good transitions, and was informational while still fun to watch.

Service Dogs vs. Therapy Dogs

    In a previous blog about therapy dogs and children, I used the terms "therapy dog" and "service dog" interchangeably, unaware that they are not the same thing. I found an article online titled, Service Animal Basics", created by Petpartners.org. The article has lots of information about how dogs or even miniature horses can be service animals. It lists services that the animals can provide, requirements and standards, and how to become a service animal. But the part that I was most interested in was a section where the article differentiates between the legal definitions of Service, Therapy, Companion, and Social animals. According to the ADA, service animals are legally defined and are highly training to perform disability related tasks for their owners who require the animal for some purpose. The animals are not pets. However, therapy animals, are not legally defined. They allow people to have contact with animals but they are not strictly for people with disabilities like a service animal would be. A therapy dog can also be classified as a service dog if it has the proper training, but service dogs that are strictly for people with disabilities cannot be classified as therapy dogs. Both types of dogs are very beneficial to their owners, however they just provide different types of services. Since many people don’t recognize the difference between the two at first, I felt like this cleared up some things and is good information so that we are aware of what we are referring to when we say "service dogs" in our documentary. 

"What do you know about service dogs?"

      I conducted a survey to see how much people actually knew about service dogs in general, and if they knew anything about the Wildcat Service Dogs organization. The first question I asked was "Do you or does anyone you know require a service dog?" I actually did not get any responses saying "yes" to this question, which I was kind of surprised by. The second question was, "What do you think service dogs are capable of doing? Check all that apply." The options were, "Leading the blind.", "Detecting high or low blood sugar.", "Opening/closing doors.", and "All of the above." For the majority of the results for this question I had people answer "All of the above", which is true, but then I also had a few responses that had either "Leading the blind" and "open doors" checked, or just one or the other. Therefore, I feel like providing information about all the things that service dogs can be trained to do would be very beneficial to our documentary. Another question I asked if anyone had any encounters with a service dog, such as being around a family member who required one, or had done any previous training with service dogs and if so, to explain; all of the responses were "no." The last two questions I asked were "Have you heard about Wildcat Service Dogs prior to this survey?" and "Are you interested in learning more about this organization and/ or getting involved with Wildcat Service Dogs?" The results were split approximately 50/50 when asked if they had heard of the organization. The choices for the last question were: "I would like to learn more.", "I would like to get involved.", or "Neither." Most said they wanted to get involved, and no one responded with "neither". One flaw I found was the sample size was very small, so for any future surveys I will need to try and figure out a better way to get the survey more publicity and hopefully get more responses. However, I do feel like the survey gave an idea of how much people know about service dogs and the organization.

Reflection

      At first, the research process went very slow because I really didn't think I could write as much about service dogs as I was supposed to. When trying to search "Service Dogs", it was difficult to find information that I hadn't already blogged about. Once I started to use different phrases when searching, and tried to tie my different blogs together, it became easier to find new, interesting information to write about. The first blogs that I wrote about Service Dogs, I felt like, were fairly vague. Once I started to find more information, I was able to go more in depth and include other outside knowledge of service dogs into the blogs. Something that worked really well was using questions that I proposed in previous blogs as the phrase that I searched and found articles based on that and tried to related them in some way. Some difficulties that I ran into were sometimes trying to reach the minimum length of the blogs without repeating myself too much, and just trying to find sources that had enough information to write about that we would be able to use in a documentary. Many sources that I found provided some good information but nothing that really stood out to me as something that we could use large pieces of in our documentary. Overall, I think the blogs make/ will make the process of making a documentary easier because we have many sources to refer to and we can take bits and pieces that we feel will benefit our documentary the most and put them together to make something that we feel is informative of our organization.

Pros and Cons of Service Dogs

       I found an article that answers a question that I had after the last blog that I posted. The article from www.doggoestocollege.com, is called "Pros and cons of getting a service dog" the author is a college student named Amelia.
      The author has a pretty lengthy list of pros and cons of owning a service dog and then goes on to explain each of them. The first "pro" she has listed is the obvious, assistance with disability. This is probably the biggest pro, and most important part of owning a service dog, from helping with simple tasks, to possibly saving a life, that's what service dogs are there for. They also allow greater independence and ensure that the owner's disability is visible. Owner's can learn a lot from their dog, and studies have shown that owning a dog is better for your health and makes it easier to be happy. The dogs also bring their owners peace of mind. Knowing that their dog can care for them in case of an emergency surly puts their mind at ease. Now, the question that was brought up in my last blog was, what other downsides to owning a service dog, and this author does a great job of listing and explaining some of the "cons" that come with owning a service dog. The first three cons that she lists, all have to do with access. She explains how many times of constantly being denied access to places or being questioned about her disability because she has a service dog with her, starts to wear on her. She said she feels like she's being discriminated against at first glance and that many people, no matter her explanation, will still deny her access, which leaves her feeling unwanted. The author also listed "ensuring the owner's disability is visible" as a con. Sometimes the owners don't want everyone to know that they have a disability, this often leads to judgement and many remarks and questions from people who don't understand why she has a service dog. However, at the end of the article she states that the pros of owning a service greatly outweigh the cons but, anyone looking into getting a service dog should know that it doesn't come without any downsides.
     I loved this article and thought it would be great to include in our documentary to show both the good and bad sides to having a service dog. It's a good source to include to sort of inform viewers that might be looking into a service dog, the cons that will come along with it, but also make them aware of all the good the service dogs do.

Owning A Service Dog

        I found an article from the Lexington Herald-Leader titled "Joy of having service dog diminished by public attention", the author was an anonymous submission to the newspaper.
        The author of this article explains their frustration with  all the attention that their service dog gets when out in public. In a previous blog, I mentioned that once source stated that service dogs are there to provide service to their owners, they are not normal pets. Many people don't truly understand this. The advice that the article gives about interacting with service dogs is: Always talk to the owner of the dog first and never touch a service dog. Simply asking for permission first can help avoid an awkward situation. Also many service dogs are trained to try and avoid being petted, some are not to be petted unless they are sitting or laying down, and some are not to be petted at all. Don't try to feed the dog any food, as this could put the dog's health at risk, or ask any questions about why the person has the service dog, as these reasons are personal to the owner. Lastly, don't be offended if the owner doesn't want to talk about their service dog, it is a personal topic that can be a touchy subject for some people. Service dogs are great and absolutely adorable so I understand why it's tempting to walk up and play with them. They should be appreciated for what they do but they should also be respected.
       I thought this article was interesting and I'm sure that many people with a service dog can relate. I thought this would be good to use in our documentary because it provides the viewpoint of a dog owner and some of the downsides to owning a service dog. I wonder what other downsides owners would say there are to owning a service dog?

Therapy Dogs and Children

        After searching the library's database, I came across an article from the Lexington Examiner titled "Could your dog be a certified therapy dog at Lexington Public Libraries?" by Jodi Dickey. The article, although fairly short, provided more insightful information about these therapy dogs and told a personal story that provided a different perspective.
        This article starts out with telling about an organization in Lexington involving therapy dogs, that not many people are aware of. The program is called Paws to Read Program and it is hosted by the Lexington Public Library. Every month therapy dogs from Love on a Leash, and their owners come out to the library and listen to children read stories to the dogs. The author then writes of a story about her own personal experience with he Paws to Read Program. She says that one day she brought her therapy dog, Kodie, to the library to be read to, but when asking one young girl if she would like to read to her dog, the girl seemed frightened. She claimed she was scared of dogs and couldn't read very well. Once Jodi commanded Kodie to lay, a calm fell over the young girl. She began to pet Kodie and was no longer scared of the dog or to read out loud. Kodie helped relax the young girl and gave her confidence in herself. When many people think of service/ therapy dogs, they don't really picture the dogs working with kids, but in reality many, many children require some type of service dog. Towards the end of the article, the author mentions how a dog can get started with training to become a therapy dog. Dogs must possess characteristics such as confidence when approaching strangers and being able to remain calm in a variety of situations, and the dog and their owner must take a test and complete 10 hours of initial service. A website is included that one can visit if they think their dog would be a good service dog.
        I feel like this article would be a good source to use to help introduce how service dogs are also required by children. It also provides an organization that is in Lexington, so it's very close and would be convenient for anyone in the audience that wants to get involved.