I know there are some homes for thew elderly with resident cats here in
Finland. In an article I read, it said dogs are not so good as resident
animals, because they get too attached to one person, and if that person
passes on, it is too distressing for a dog. The right kind of cat dishes
out equal amounts of love and purring to anyone who needs it. This was
what they claimed in the article, but a cat like Frank, who is such a
Mama's boy, I think would mourn me if I went. Nikki is pretty happy with
anyone.

There story on CNN.com says the dog was trained to take the phone of
the hook and push the speed dial button for 911 with her nose, but
there's no mention of the owner having previously notified emergency
services that the dog was trained to do this. OTOH, the owner trained
the dog to do this, with help from people from the Assistance Dog Club
of Puget Sound. It seems reasonable to me that someone somewhere along
the line told the authorities. Kind of like how you can let the fire
department know if you have small children or invalids in your home,
just in case.

Jeanne Hedge, as directed by Natasha

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http://www.jhedge.com

Small dogs make good seizure alert dogs for one.  I have a friend who
has seizures who has two dogs trained as seizure alert dogs.  The prime
requirement for them is that they can sense when a seizure is coming on
and alert her so she knows she needs to find a sitting position that is
safe.  She doesn't have violent seizures, so she just needs to know when
not to fall so she doens't hurt herself, although the dogs are trained
to go get help if she tells them to go get help - usually her husband.
Not all dogs are able to sense seizures coming on, but the ones that
can, can usually do so up to 20 minutes ahead of time.  It is pretty
remarkable to see, especially from the time they notify her of an
impending seizure to the 20 minute wait for the seizure to actually
happen.  And it always does.

Small dogs are also good for hearing dogs.  Another friend of mine is
almost totally deaf without her hearing aids.  She relies on her dog to
tell her when someone is at the door, the phone is ringing, the smoke
alarm is going off, or a kitchen timer has rung.  That dog will stop at
nothing to get her attention to the noise and each noise has a different
behavior, so my friend knows immediately what noise she missed.  When
the phone is ringing, her dog runs back and forth from her to the phone
and jumps on her each time, the kitchen timer makes him run in circles,
a knock on the door gets really really loud barks and he runs back and
forth from her to the door and the smoke alarm will make him jump all
over her while running back and forth to and from the door.

So, big dogs are a must for some service animal positions, but small
ones are just as good in others and cats work just fine in some too.  I
even remember seeing a show where a cat was trained to help someone who
was hearing impaired by doing things like running back and forth from
the person to the phone and sitting on the phone and running back.

I know it might seem like I know a lot of people with service animals of
various sorts, and I do.  But it is because we all knew each other and
all discovered the laws about service animals from each other a little
at a time.  I got the ones about not having to ask your landlord about
permission to have them, my friend with seizures got the hospital
prepared to have service animals in the hospital (I majorly benefitted
from that), we all found out you can train your own animals and so did,
my hearing impaired friend found out about how to fly on planes with a
service animal and we have shared freely with everyone we know in the
community, so there are probably more service animals here per capita
than other places.  By this point in time, we are all experts in the
laws, federal and our own state as well as good at training and helping
others train by giving them tips.  And we all have really well behaved
animals that are well socialized that everyone comments on.  Which is
what a good service animal should be - well trained enough to stand out
from other animals.  One of my pet peeves is someone who only halfway
trains their animal, calls it trained and then uses it as a service
animal by taking it into restaurants or other public areas where it
misbehaves or doesn't exhibit exemplary behavior.  When one of my cats
go into the hospital with me, the staff love the cat because he does
what I tell him to do and he is sweet and loving and doesn't try to
escape from the room, even if the door is left open for an extended
period of time (a psychotic patient once went into my room, let the
STripey Thing out of his kennel and then left the door to the room open,
some time later, I walk to my room to get something, see the cage empty
and panic until I see my Stripey Thing under my bed as far away from
prying hands as he could get.  It never occurred to him to leave).  That
is what I mean by well trained.  And now I will step down from my soap
box.  I kind of got sidetracked there.