Solani said:
Regardless, even if she is a registered emotional support animal, there are still problems that can be a royal pain in the rear... Mostly from people that don't think there is anything "wrong" with me, since you can't see anything visually ailing me... Then there are the plain a-holes that just have to have their negative comments on anything and everything. I tend to avoid most people as people are actually one of my main triggers and Nova knows this and strategically places her big body between me and whomever is approaching.
My dog does that instinctively. I've found it amazing to watch. When a neighbor's dog who regularly runs and smashes into one of our other dogs, sometimes even throwing her into a somersault, starts approaching her, he quietly walks between them. When that dog switches position, so does mine, interposing himself again. My dog just looks straight ahead, calmly. No pressure, nothing to think about, nothing to do here. All my dog appears to be doing is inhaling the wind. But ...
... he is THERE. Precisely.
The other dog gets the message that if he wants our other smaller dog, he has to come through my dog. Now the game isn't so fun anymore. Does he think he can take my dog? Who knows? But the game has become more trouble than it's worth. The story moves on, and nobody has been hurt or upset, no owner and no dog. Eventually the other dog turns about and finds something to think about. My dog, relaxed as ever, goes about some other business. The whole thing is a model of quiet care and benevolent authority. A huge problem between not just dogs but owners has been solved, and I haven't had to do a thing.
Regarding other people not understanding another's disability, I understand that comprehensively. I have strabismus and scoliosis, neither of which are necessarily immediately understandable as having much effect, both of which can make an amazing difference in personal abilities. Even friends and family who have known me for decades often can't understand what it means to have strabismus, for the easiest example. When I tell them I can't see in three dimensions, only 2-D, even my own mother asks why I can't just try harder. Scoliosis is vastly simpler intellectually, really bog-standard, but possibly even harder to explain. Unless your body shape is cast in nearly impossible dimensions, people are reluctant to believe there could be anything wrong of any note with a mis-aligned spine and its limitations and tendencies. In fact they'll even argue against it!
I think this is a product of inelegant analogy. People tend to think of themselves and then extrapolate both their own capacities and their own laziness to you ... and then decide that since you look healthy on the outside, you're like them in all important respects. And so since they would never in their wildest dreams be held back by a "little" back-ache (scoliosis) or strabismus (inability to see in 3D), you shouldn't be either and are just a malingerer. They analogize themselves to someone who only *looks* like them for the most part (the crossed eyes of strabismus and hunched or twisted backs of scoliosis notwithstanding) and on that basis assume another is effectively on their level. And from there comes the criticism ...
Yet when I saw a chiropractor in my early 30's he told me he didn't want to take a chance on working on me, because it was too unsafe, and that even then I had the back of a 70 year old man. He actually refused to take me on as a patient. Sometimes I see stars trying to straighten my back, but since I'm not the elephant man ...
There's a TED talk that hits on the inability of people to understand other people that I think quite interesting.
Scott Adams, the Dilbert guy, has several videos about this. His politics may or may not be to his taste, but his analysis of people is often pretty interesting. He claims that about 30% of people simply cannot understand jokes. They may smile and clap, but they're looking around uneasily at the folks around them approving of the joke, and merely instinctively go along.
Jon Ronson examines psycopaths and sociopaths in his book, The Psychopath Test, looking over, among other things, a famous psycopathy test that examines tendencies to remove oneself from the realm of ordinary understanding.
The truth is, a lot of us, not just genetically but even generationally and likely in many other ways there's no time to go into here, simply *cannot* understand each other.
That's has all the potential of a hand lifting the lid of Pandora's Box.
