Relief Areas for Dogs at Airports: Department of Transportation Proposes Rules, Solicits Advice on Open Issues

Airlines are already covered by a requirement to provide relief areas for service animals, but since the relief areas have to be at terminals, and some airport operators were not being fully cooperative with the airlines, the Department of Transportation has proposed rules that will apply to the terminal operators as well. The rules will apply to most commercial airports, though some of the smallest would not be covered. These smaller facilities,...

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Hierarchy and Insurrection in the Medieval Forest

John Manwood’s Treatise of the Forest Laws, written at the end of the sixteenth century but describing a legal system that flowered centuries earlier, provides great detail about how those without grants from the king were punished for taking game from, or sometimes just near to, a royal forest. (Most older sources, and the discussion here, use "forest" as meaning a "royal forest," while referring to other wooded areas as "chases," "warrens," "woods,"...

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Do Dogs Display Guilt? Does the Smell of Lavender Relax Them? Curious Findings from a Recent Ethology Conference

Ethology was once the attempt to study an animal's behavior free of human coordinates. At Berkeley, and then at Tower Island in the Galapagos, I tested the ability of intertidal crabs to navigate by the sun and the moon. It was considered important at the time to eliminate human measures and even human terms from a study of an animal's behavior. "Begin with the fact that the animal has survived. It is here. It is successful. Saying it was intelligent...

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Creating A Model Law for Dog Parks

Last month Fran Breitkopf and I posted a blog, Dog Park Law 101, in which we discussed statutes and cases that concern dog parks ("dog runs" in some older laws). We noticed how uncommon the phrase is in both contexts. We contacted Professor David Favre of the Michigan State University College of Law on the issue. He suggested we consider drafting a model law concerning dog parks and we began a systematic review of relevant codes. Our analysis,...

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"Inquirers" Were Little More Than Guests, Retreat Was Little More Than Spa/Hotel, Yet Church Group Battles to Exclude Guide Dog

Optimum Health Institute is a non-profit, religious organization affiliated with the Free Sacred Trinity Church, which describes itself as a “non-denominational church rooted in early Judeo-Christian doctrine.” OHI invites people “from all religious traditions” to attend its “spiritual retreat” in Lemon Grove, California, near San Diego, where they will participate in “prayer circles” and perhaps have their lives transformed by “miraculous healings on all levels.” Those coming to Lemon Grove reside in guest rooms, but Robert Nees, Ecclesiastical...

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