Q&A* Press Center* Clips
Questions & Answers
Q: Does a service animal have to be licensed and vaccinated?
A: Hawaii is rabies-free. A service animal brought to Hawaii from the mainland must have current rabies vaccination and meet certain other requirements. SASH service animals are also tested for ticks and implanted with a microchip. They are licensed in the locality where they are placed prior to placement. The service animal’s handler is responsible for maintaining any locally required license after the transfer of ownership.
Q: Is a service animal in training treated the same as a service animal that has completed its training?
A: Animals in training do not qualify as service animals because under the ADA, the dog must already be trained before it can be taken into public places.
Q: Can any dog be trained to be a service animal?
A: Any breed of dog can in theory be a service dog. But sadly, there are few dogs that can qualify as service animals for some tasks. For example, service animals who provide some medical alerts such as for certain cancers and diabetes must possess keen olfactory senses to recognize when the handler/owner is experiencing a threatening health situation. Other dogs may be unsuited for accompanying their handler/owner into certain public places. For example, a dog that growls in what it perceives to be threatening settings might not qualify as a service animal if it cannot be trained to to focus on the handler/owner so as to become a useful tool for handling that person’s required tasks in such settings.
Q: Is a service animal able to accompany a person to doctors’ appointments, hospital visits, and in ambulances?
A: In general, the answer is “yes.” A service animal may accompany its handler/owner in an ambulance if there is sufficient room for the animal. A service animal may accompany its handler/owner to a doctor’s office or hospital provided that the service animal is housebroken and non-threatening. Even if there are other patients who might have allergies to dogs, a handler/owner may ask to be accompanied by the service animal. In such cases, the handler/owner and the service animal may be served in a separate space from persons affected by allergies.
If having the service animal on the premises becomes problematic, as it might if the service animal were to growl at medical staff, if the handler/owner was unable to walk the service animal outside when it needed to relieve itself, or if the handler/owner was unable to otherwise care for the service animal, then the handler/owner is responsible for making arrangements for a family member or friend to provide services because it is always preferable to not separate the handler/owner from the service animal. But the medical service provider is not responsible for service animal care..
If there is no one to provide such services, then the hospital or similar facility can place the service animal in boarding until the handler/owner can make other arrangements.
Q: Does Medicaid or Medicare cover the costs of obtaining or caring for a service animal?
A: No. That is one reason why nonprofit charities like SASH have stepped in to train and place service animals with persons who cannot afford them.
Q: What can I do to help SASH achieve its mission?
A: SASH accepts contributions from donors, matching gifts and grants from employers, and grants from other charitable entities. Please CONTACT US.
Q: What can I do to qualify for placement of a service animal?
A: SASH has a waiting list of persons seeking placements, but, because of the fact that some dogs can be trained to serve in some capacities and not others, we welcome the opportunity to discuss with you your needs and your financial resources for acquiring a service animal. In some cases, we have been able to match persons who did not qualify for SASH assistance with other nonprofit organizations. Email us at information@SASH-hawaii.com.
READ ON TO LEARN MORE ABOUT SASH!
Press Center
What follows are excerpts from local publications detailing how SASH service animals have enhanced the lives of some of Hawaii’s most deserving residents:
Hanna, Luanu, Lilo’s Very Bad Day at Ho’olehua Clinic, Ka Wai Ola, kawaiola.news (July 31, 2024 3:00pm):
Kepuhi resident Oliana Wong has been in and out of local clinics on Moloka’i since birth, but her first trip to new urgent care clinic Kokua Halemai in the town of Ho’olehua did not go as well as she and her family hoped. On July 29, Oliana was home alone with her new service animal Lilo when her blood sugar dropped precipitously. Trained to sense when Oliana’s juvenile diabetes veers from a healthy range, Lilo whined and licked her hands, until she woke from her sleep. At Lilo’s insistence, she tried to test her blood, but was unable to move with any dexterity. She was barely able to dial for assistance.
When volunteer ambulance drivers and brothers Kaleo and Mano Kekoa arrived at the Wong family home, Oliana was barely conscious. Luckily she and Lilo wore bands that labeled her as a person with Type 1 Diabetes. The ambulance carried Oliana and Lilo to Kokua Halemai Urgent Care Clinic on Hawaii Hwy. 470 in Ho’olehua. The clinic was closer than the Queens Medical Hospital in Kaunakakai by about five possibly crucial minutes.
Luckily for Oliana, the clinic’s Doctor Keanu Kapule was present (he lives above the clinic), and he was able to stabilize Oliana swiftly. Lilo was not as lucky in his experience at the clinic. The clinic’s twenty-one-year-old receptionist Leilani Kahue separated Lilo from his owner to give him an opportunity to relieve himself before taking him into the clinic to be with Oliana.
Neither Kahue nor Lilo made it safely to the patch of grass across the clinic’s parking lot. A vehicle raced past the two just as they prepared to step from the curb beside the parked ambulance into the parking lot. It was a near miss. Lilo saved the day a second time by rearing back, possibly saving Kahue from being struck, but as she fell, she fell onto Lilo. Her elbow rammed into Lilo’s snout.
“I could hear Lilo’s cries from the ambulance’s bay,” Oliana Wong reported. “I am not sure I have ever heard such a painful sound.” Kaleo Kekoa confirmed the extremeness of the animal’s cries of pain: “Not a whine, not a whimper, this was a howl of pain that halted all of us in our tracks.”
"I know I've only known Lilo for about a month. He is my service animal and not my pet or companion, but he's become very important to me in this short time. I really love him," declared Oliana Wong.
While Dr. Kapule and his nurse Iolana Akana attended to Oliana Wong, Dr. Richard Betts, a veterinarian whose animal clinic is located at the other end of the strip mall, responded to a summons from the Kekoa brothers. He did what he could to relieve Lilo of his pain, but swelling and bruising has caused Lilo to lose his sense of smell. It is not yet known whether he will be able to continue as a service animal. When asked for an opinion, Dr. Betts would only say, “Time will tell.”
When we reached out to Dr. Kapule for his reactions to the incident, we could not reach him. His receptionist Leilani Kahue said only, “That dog may have saved my life.”
We always remind our readers to express their appreciation of first responders and that usually means police officers, firefighters, and EMS technicians, but the events at the Kokua Halemai Urgent Care Clinic are a reminder that some first responders have four legs and hearts of gold.
–Ka Wai Ola, is a free monthly newspaper of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs that effectively serves the Hawaiian community by reporting on critical issues that impact not only Hawaiians, but the community at large.
Maria Alama, Kepuhi Teen Finds Freedom Thanks to SASH, Hawaii News Now, hawaiinewsnow.com (June 22, 2024 9:00am):
Hawaii News Now reporter Maria Alama was on hand at the Moloka’i Airport near Ho’olehua when seventeen-year-old Moloka’i island native Oliana Wong and her parents met the answer to their prayers–a service animal named Lilo. Trained by the Honolulu-based charity Service Animals Serving Hawaii (known as SASH), Lilo is a German shepherd acquired from an American Kennel Club breeder in Maryland because of his unique ability to smell when someone’s blood sugar rises or falls to a potentially dangerous level.
Oliana Wong was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes as a toddler when it became apparent that she was not thriving. Since then she has needed to remain close to her family at all times so that they could monitor her condition and administer insulin. Her father Luano and mother Malia raised Oliana with the help of Luano’s mother by working different shifts either on their rural farm or at the Poko Pineapple production plant near their home in Kepuhi. Her mother told reporter Maria Alama: “This service animal will be a lifesaver for all of us. I haven’t known a good night’s sleep in eighteen years.”
Speaking of eighteen years, we learned that Oliana will celebrate her eighteenth birthday later this summer. Lilo arrived just in time to help her celebrate adulthood and maybe a little adult independence. The day they first met, Oliana found Lilo a little intimidating as he sat staring at her from his very large travel crate in the Mokuleb Airlines terminal, but she cried as she studied him: “He could be my Prince Charming!”
SASH President Joyce Rodrigues explained that a SASH volunteer will stay with the Wong family for about two weeks to begin the necessary training that Lilo will need if he is indeed the right match for Oliana. “Lilo is a highly trained tool, not a pet you can win over with a few treats. He needs to be finely tuned to sense when Oliana is in need of meds. She needs to be trained to see him as a type of medical device rather than as a pet so that his attention is on her care, not her caring. And everyone in her family circle needs to respect the very specific role Lilo will play in her life.”
SASH is able to place animals like Lilo with persons like Oliana Wong because of the generous support of other Hawaiians. To learn how you can donate to SASH, check out its website: sash-hawaii.com.
–Hawaii News Now. Get the latest breaking news, features and weather updates delivered directly to you with the HNN “Inbox Update.”
Hard Times Call for HARD Measures, KHON2, www.khon2.com (Feb. 2, 2024 5:00pm):
Many local charities have reported reduced fundraising results since the start of the COVID pandemic in March of 2020. But hard times have led some of those charities to explore new ways of attracting funding to continue their services to Hawaiian residents. This is especially true of those charities that serve indigenous citizens of this state. . . .
Service Animals Serving Hawaii, or SASH, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation that feared it would have to halt its training of three dogs that it hopes will one day qualify as service animals assisting Hawaiian residents living with disabilities. Once again, HARD (originally known as Hawaiians Actualizing Residents’ Dreams), a program funded by some of the persons who have most heavily invested in Hawaiian real property and who wish to remain anonymous (though we can all guess who they are), got to work.
After several fundraising events at the private homes of some of its grantors, HARD came up with $50,000 to ensure that at least one more service animal will be placed in 2024. You may recall that HARD contributed funds in 2023 that made it possible for Allen Kahale to acquire his service animal Luna. Luna lies on Allen’s legs whenever he is hospitalized because it helps the blood flow better to his brain, and helps him recover more quickly. Due to frequent hospitalizations for poor circulation in his neck, Allen often found himself in need of transfusions until he acquired Luna. As Allen told attendees at a SASH fundraising event: “Before SASH provided me with this invaluable tool, I sometimes had to stay overnight at the hospital while doctors tried to keep my blood flowing. Sometimes having this service animal sit on me while I sleep has kept me from having to see a doctor at all!”
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HARD and SASH are working together to provide a new type of service animal to a Hawaiian resident. After reading New York Times bestselling author Maria Goodavage’s 2019 book entitled Doctor Dogs: How Our Friends Are Becoming Our Best Medicine, officers of both charities decided to train a dog to care for a girl with Type 1 Diabetes. The dogs with a keen sense of smell can identify sugar highs and lows. Some dogs have even been trained to detect breast, cervical, colorectal, liver, lung, ovarian, prostate, skin, stomach, and thyroid cancers by smelling blood, sweat, tissue, and urine samples.
Not every dog can do this work. A dog that is toy-, food-, or companion-driven will be easily distracted by hunger, boredom, distractions, fear, or tiredness. As SASH President Joyce Rodrigues explains, “Some of the scientists are withholding endorsements until they get more empirical data, but we are seeing signs that trained service animals can be better tools than pinpricks, blood drawings, and MRIs.” She added: “If seeing is believing, then I have seen and I believe in the dog doctors.”
–KHNO2, serving Honolulu, Kona, Hilo, Kauai, and Maui County.
Contact Us with Your Service Animal Story
SASH, P.O. Box 2325, Honolulu, HI 96812
808-999-9999
information@sash.com