Who Let the Dogs Out? A Plea for Official Guidelines on Service Animals in the Teaching Laboratory

Abstract

Microbiology teaching labs provide the opportunity for students to develop marketable skills while observing the microbial inhabitants of our planet as they grow, ferment, and produce colorful by-products. Emphasizing safe laboratory practices is an essential part of this education, but occasionally situations that challenge safety paradigms arise. We describe here a recent incident in which a student brought a guide dog-in-training to her microbiology lab, causing a scramble to provide “reasonable” accommodations. Following time-consuming consultations with Disability Services for Students, Human Resources, Risk Management, and Legal Counsel, it was determined that the student had no disability herself and was not actually a certified guide-dog trainer. This deceptive behavior is not acceptable in general but is especially dangerous in a microbiology lab where safe lab practices are essential. Ultimately it was agreed that the microbiology lab is not a public space but rather a restricted space that requires closed toed shoes and personal protective equipment. Thus it is not possible to admit animals that are not fully trained, as this can endanger both the animal and the other students in the laboratory. The intent is not to limit opportunities for the truly disabled but rather to keep every student safe. Our objective is to bring attention to this complex issue in hopes that the American Society for Microbiology or other prominent scientific organizations will establish clear guidelines to educate students, faculty, administrators, and the general public on the challenges and dangers associated with guide dogs in a microbiology laboratory.

INTRODUCTION

In higher education, time is typically measured in semesters. The first weeks of any semester are busy and hectic, as students struggle to settle into a routine that includes new courses, assignments, extracurricular activities, and, often, adjusting a work schedule to accommodate all of these things. Within a few weeks, usually the dramas have subsided, most students and faculty have gotten into a groove, and things begin to hum along smoothly. The microbiology students are slowly gaining experience with Gram staining and isolation streaks. So it came as a complete shock when one of the microbiology lab instructors reached out to the lab supervisor for guidance in the fifth week of the spring semester. A student brought a guide dog-in-training to the Biosafety Level 2 (BSL2) microbiology teaching lab. What should she do?

This deceptively simple question turned out to be incredibly complicated to answer. Indeed, what should she do? As scientists and instructors of microbiology, we are all very well versed in safety regulations. There are guidelines from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), not to mention our own institution’s Risk Management and Environmental Health and Safety Offices. But what is a microbiology lab instructor to do when none of those agencies have any specific rules or regulations for this particular situation? We describe here the challenge that our biology program faced in trying to accommodate a service animal in a teaching laboratory, an issue that is becoming increasingly common at other colleges and universities.

Service animals—what they are and aren’t

According to the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), a service animal is defined as a dog that has been trained to perform a specific task for a person with a disability. The task can vary but must be related to the disability (1). For example, a service animal may help navigate for a visually impaired owner or respond to the doorbell for a hearing impaired owner. Service dogs can pick up items and even push buttons to open doors for physically impaired owners in wheelchairs. A separate category of animals that has become increasingly popular in recent years is emotional support animals. Although beneficial and possibly invaluable to the owner, emotional support animals and therapy animals do not perform specific disability tasks and are not legally required to have access to public spaces (1). However, it is easy to purchase official looking vests and identification cards from online vendors, which has resulted in an alarming number of “fake” service dogs in public spaces as well as the university setting. Several instances of these fraudulent service dogs attacking people and other service animals have been reported in mainstream news outlets (2). Now airlines and even many states are finding they need to enact rules and regulations to rein in individuals trying to pass off emotional support animals as true service animals so they can gain access to places that normally restrict pets (3). In the state of Texas, it is illegal to falsely claim an animal as a service dog. Section 121.006 of Texas State Policy imposes misdemeanor fines and community service for individuals who misrepresent their animal as a service animal. Unfortunately, enforcing such statutes has been difficult. According to the ADA, only two questions can be asked of an individual who appears to have a service animal. These questions are: 1) Is this animal required because of a disability? 2) What work or task has this animal been trained to perform? (1). With such limitations on the information one can legally request from a student who suddenly shows up to a microbiology lab with a support animal, guidance is needed on how to identify true service animals, appropriately address the issue, and accommodate the animal in the lab space.

It takes a village

The story of the student at our university became complicated because it turned out that the student was passing off a pet as a service dog-in-training. This was determined during a conversation between the student and the Director of Disability Services for Students during which the student volunteered this information. She admitted she had gotten a new puppy and didn’t want to leave it alone in her apartment. Up to this point, however, multiple calls and e-mails were exchanged between the Microbiology Laboratory Director, the Chair of the Biology Department, the Director of Disability Services for Students (DSS), the Director of Environmental Health and Safety (EHS), and Human Resources (HR), resulting in vigorous debates about what the university was required to do. While DSS, EHS, and HR felt the guide dog-in-training was allowed in the lab and suggested that booties and goggles be purchased for the dog, the Biology Department had serious safety concerns about granting an untrained animal access to the BSL2 lab. Because the student admitted her dog was not a true service animal and agreed not to bring the animal back to the microbiology lab, we avoided having to make a tough decision. This was actually not the first time a student brought a service animal into the microbiology lab at our institution without any prior notification to the instructor. In the previous instance, the student had a genuine disability and a fully trained service animal. Constructive conversations with the student, DSS, and the Microbiology Laboratory Director resulted in a compromise in which the animal was placed on an absorbent mat (to save contact with the floor) just at the doorway but near to the student’s bench. This prevented the animal from walking through the lab but allowed it to be relatively close to the student. The student in this case was very happy with the arrangement and the Microbiology Laboratory Director was satisfied that safety risks were mitigated for the student, the dog, and the other 23 students in the lab section.

Reasonable accommodations

Most of the time, a student with a disability is amenable to what the instructor would believe are reasonable accommodations, which is the very essence of the legislations that govern disability accommodation. Based on conversations among the scientists and microbiology educators at our institution, our minimum recommendation for a service animal in the BSL2 microbiology teaching lab is for the dog to be at least five feet from other students so the animal itself is not a trip hazard on the floor. The animal should be placed near the door so it does not walk through the lab or get too close to other students. It cannot be discounted that there may be students who feel this is not reasonable or negates the purported tasks of their animal, yet, on the other hand, there may be instructors who feel that service animals should not be allowed in BSL2 spaces at all. Since there are no guidelines to follow, it is up to the individual or the institution to make decisions. Several schools are charging ahead with their own policies in the face of this potentially litigious issue. Even if a student did not choose to sue over access restrictions, negative publicity is always a concern based upon anecdotal accounts on social media and through news outlets.

Most institutions have readily accessible service animal policies, but these do not always address specialized spaces like teaching laboratories. Various institutions have barred service animals from animal facilities and others from any BSL2 area. Most institutions with detailed published policies include a caveat of exceptions being available upon request and/or approval. For example, Brown University’s service animal policy does not specifically address BSL2 spaces but restricts access to “research laboratories or classrooms that contain research animals, areas that require protective clothing” and mentions that exceptions could be requested and considered on a case-by-case basis (https://www.brown.edu/campus-life/support/accessibility-services/service-and-emotional-support-animals-campus). At Indiana University, the policy states that a “needs assessment” be performed for BSL1 lab entry and generally no admittance to BSL2 labs. They do specify that exemptions can be requested by personnel (https://protect.iu.edu/environmental-health/laboratory-safety/service-animals-in-labs.html). Hamilton College in New York also generally restricts service animals from BSL2 research and teaching labs and the vivarium (https://www.hamilton.edu/offices/dos/accessibility). Montana State University allows service animals in BSL1 labs but not BSL2. However, they too list that alternative solutions may be worked out. They also bring up a key rationale for the exclusion of animals from BSL2 spaces in the CDC’s Biosafety in Microbiological and Biomedical Laboratories (BMBL), which states that “Animals and plants not associated with the work being performed must not be permitted in the laboratory” (http://www.montana.edu/orc/biosafety/policies.html; 4).

A call for action

Educational institutions should strive to be proactive instead of reactive. The authors call on the American Society for Microbiology to convene a task force to address this particularly litigious issue and publish guidelines for service animals in microbiology teaching labs. In 2012, ASM published much needed Guidelines on Biosafety in Teaching Laboratories (5). However, no mention is given to service animals. The American Chemical Society (ACS) has a recent publication on Service Dogs in the Chemistry Laboratory which outlines reasonable accommodations for an animal in such a space (6). Many of the issues outlined in this perspective are addressed in that ACS publication. The chemistry lab can be a hazardous space, but a microbiology lab utilizing BSL2 pathogens can be even more hazardous if not broached with adequate caution and training. It is quite easy to leave the hazards of a chemistry lab in the lab once you leave. The same cannot necessarily be said for a microbiology lab space, where it is possible to bring the hazard home with you and share it with others. This unfortunate reality was demonstrated by the multi-state outbreaks of the strain of Salmonella typhimurium that is commonly employed in teaching labs. The CDC investigation of this outbreak precipitated the formation of the guidelines on biosafety in the teaching lab by ASM. Within roughly a one-year period, there were 109 individuals infected with the lab strain, many of whom had never even entered the lab space (5). The potential for harm cannot be ignored when one is considering bringing an animal into the same space where infectious agents are used. The very nature of a dog is that it does not have the cognitive ability to assess and avoid biohazards for itself the same way a human can. When there are such defined guidelines governing personal safety equipment and appropriate attire for individuals in the BSL2 lab space, there must be the same for an animal, if it is allowed to enter at all.

CONCLUSIONS

Since service animals have public access rights, their service partners do not need to register the animal with the university. We were surprised to learn this when we communicated with DSS to check on the accommodation needs of the student. Do we as educators have the right to deny access to a service animal in a BSL2 lab space? It is currently an accepted practice to deny access to emotional support animals since they do not have the same training and legislation governing their right to access public spaces. We are proposing a policy at our institution to restrict access to service dogs-in-training since they have not achieved the behavioral constraint of a fully trained animal. Since the BSL2 lab is a restricted space requiring personal protective equipment, should it therefore be considered a “non-public” space? Animal research facilities on some campuses have also come under litigation for denying access to service animals, based on the notion that their presence may cause research animals to behave differently (7). Should service dogs also be allowed into those spaces since many are a part of federally and state-funded colleges and universities? These are important questions that many educators are facing as more and more service dogs are being trained to perform a diverse array of tasks. This issue should be discussed within the ASM by microbiologists. Since we are experts, we need to establish easy-to-follow basic guidelines so that all colleges and universities across the country adhere to the same standards for access and accommodations of service animals serving students in BSL2 teaching labs and, possibly, animal care facilities.