Army Veteran Orders Breakfast At Restaurant Only To Be Kicked Out - They Regret It Immediately

Feb 05, 2019 by apost team

The restaurant industry is considered hectic owing to the interactions between various personalities. According to statistics, the sector records a high turnover rate among employees. For this reason, it is quite hard to retain highly trained staff or training new individuals properly.

Training is essential after the recruitment process if we don’t want to hear of the many incidences that occur out of ignorance. For instance, a young lady, ignorant of the law stating about service animals, unfairly discredited a US Army veteran. How?

For more than 30 years, Major Diggs Brown served the country as an army officer. Among his tasks were a tour of Afghanistan. Like most officers, he returned home suffering from a post-traumatic stress disorder. His dog, Arthur, helps him get through his post-war days by giving him company wherever he goes.

Little known to people, the Americans with Disabilities Act permits some people with special cases to have pets around them anywhere regardless of any laws erected.

According to Major Diggs, Arthur has helped him through this recovery journey from his nightmares. Arthur reminds him that he is at home safely when he is suffering from anxiety attacks. He owes his life to Arthur especially when he is off medication.

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There is a thick line differentiating therapy animals from service animals. Service animals are strictly restricted to dogs. Service dogs surpass all regulations and are allowed to keep their owners' company in restaurants as long as they can be identified as service dogs. Unlike therapy animals, service dogs go through extensive training to ensure that they maintain proper manners in public settings.

Major Diggs, a Colorado resident, was in Chicago in 2015, for a visit when he decided to have breakfast before heading home. He picked Cochon Volant, a French bistro as his desired breakfast stop. As traditional service would have it, he sat waiting for a waiter to pick his order. A hostess approached him, evidently ignorant of the law, and told him that his dog wasn’t allowed in the restaurant as per the premises' laws.

Major Diggs went ahead to inform her that Arthur was a service dog permitted by the law to accompany him wherever he wanted. He ordered his breakfast as he should have in the beginning. However, the hostess returned this time demanding that he leave if he wasn’t ready to follow the law.

Major Diggs left the restaurant, triggered, and headed to the airport to catch his flight back to Colorado. The incident disturbed his peace, and he planned to inform the public about service dogs through Facebook.

He aired his experience with Arthur with the aim of educating the society and preventing such cases from happening to other service dog owners.

In response, the Cochon Volant restaurant responded to his viral post. They apologized on behalf of the young lady who was uninformed of such cases. The restaurant went further to explain in their post that they would review their training protocol to help prevent similar incidences from happening.

Puppies Behind Bars, a facility where Arthur was trained, received a donation from Cochon Volant as a sign of appreciation. Major Diggs, put out a comment to the public while participating in an event by No Barriers, a group that caters for veterans with post-war disabilities.

He stated that his intention was to make a change on how service dogs are unfairly treated from time to time. He, however, holds no grudge against the hostess nor the restaurant. Diggs was happy to see the restaurant respond and make promises to improve their services.

Major Diggs’s thoughts and hopes have reached so many people already. He only hopes to see you and more people get informed about service dogs and their usefulness around their owners. Let's help him and others by passing his story on to friends and loved ones.