The line distinguishing pet from service partner is not always clearly drawn, as a student affiliated with the student service dog training organization Patriot Paws was denied the ability to train due to the policies enforced by her residence.
Junior Patriot Paws member Alli Bradshaw said being denied the ability to house a service-dog-in-training in her apartment at Aggie Station makes meeting the needs of community members even more difficult.
“We have a high demand for service dogs and there are veterans who are committing suicide each day due to things like PTSD and not being sufficient on their own,” Bradshaw said. “What we are trying to do is place these dogs with sufficient professional trainers to train them for these reasons, but it’s hard when something a little trivial like this gets in the way.”
Aggie Station enforces a strict no-pet policy and makes exceptions only for residents who need service dogs due to a disability after providing them with medical documentation from a professional.
“We don’t allow any pets and training dogs are treated the same here just as they would anywhere else in Texas,” said Evette Contreras, general assistant manager of Aggie Station.
Cade Rosenbaum, Aggie Station resident and sophomore communication major, said he did not agree with the apartment complex’s no-pet rule being applied to service-dogs-in-training.
Faith Williams, Patriot Paws member and senior animal science major, said the organization views the incident as a missed opportunity to positively impact a life.
“Although one person who can’t train is seemingly miniscule, in reality that’s one more life that could’ve been saved,” Williams said.
Bradshaw said a lot of service dog handlers and users face problems solely due to unawareness.
“If our brave service men and women didn’t fight for our country, none of this would be here,” Williams said. “These apartment buildings wouldn’t be here, this University wouldn’t be here, nothing would be here without them and so sometimes we need to put things into perspective and think of what it’ all about,”