The latest from my friend Christina Roof at AMVETS in the ongoing attempt to get service dogs approved in all VA facilities – a letter from Rep Ron Klein of Florida asking Secretary Shinseki to change the regulations to reflect this. (Click on the images for larger, more readable versions.)

Some of you are already aware of this, but individual VA facilities control their own access, and VA has said they cannot order them to allow service dogs because they don’t have regulatory authority to do that. This has resulted in the ultimate irony in some cases – a veteran has his service dog approved by the VA, but is then unable to take the dog into the VA medical facility where he receives care.

As I’ve said before, classic thing where your initial reaction is “This is so dumb, you must be making it up.” and then you realize “No, this is so dumb, you couldn’t make it up.”

Definitely something that is long overdue being corrected.  Stay tuned.