Anki Celander and her assistance dog Hedda know only too well the challenges faced by people with disabilities. And as a wheelchair user as well, the pair are no strangers to double discrimination.

“We have a lot of problems getting access for assistance dog teams who are also wheelchair users,” she explains. “It’s exhausting having to fight those battles every day. I’m lucky - I don’t have to have Hedda with me all the time. Sometimes I leave her behind at home because I just can’t face having that fight. But I shouldn’t be forced to make that choice.”

As we mark International Wheelchair Day, it’s worth reflecting that according to the World Health Organization, around one percent of the global population - that’s more than 80 million people - use a wheelchair regularly. Many of them also need their assistance dog to help them with practical everyday tasks such as opening doors, pressing a lift button, retrieving bank cards from ATMs, fetching dropped items or even loading the washing machine.

Even for wheelchair users such as Anki - who relies on smooth-haired Collie Hedda for tasks such as picking things up, pushing doors open or fetching help - simply negotiating everyday life can be a significant challenge. “Even though people can see I am in a wheelchair and therefore it’s obvious I have a disability, we still get denied access.”

Anki - who founded Svenska Service och Signalhundsförbundet (Swedish Service and Signal Dog Association, SoS) in 1999 - has been a vocal campaigner for disability rights and assistance dogs for more than 40 years. SoS has been a proud member of Assistance Dogs International (ADI) since 2008, and Anki sits on the Assistance Dogs Europe (ADEu) Regional Council.

As chair of the Municipal Council for the Disabled and vice-chair of the Disabled People's Co-operation Committee in her home town of Karlshamn in southern Sweden, she has seen many changes - mostly for the better. “Sweden now has laws to prevent discrimination against people with disabilities and to ensure access rights, and there is a lot of publicity about it. Hopefully that will bring about a change in attitudes.”

But Anki also admits there is a long way to go before people with disabilities are accepted as equals, even in Sweden’s famously progressive society. “My message on International Wheelchair Day is that we want to be accepted as we are and not be constantly questioned. We always need to argue for our place. That’s still
a problem - we get tired of that.”

It’s not just wheelchair users, as Anki points out. “Many of the problems reported by our clients relate to assistance dogs that help with so-called invisible disabilities, such as medical alert dogs or PTSD support dogs. They often get denied access - that’s a major problem. People say ‘You don’t need a dog, you’re not
disabled.’”

Ironically, the COVID-19 pandemic literally opened doors for many assistance dog users in Sweden. “In the past couple of years, since Covid, you can see a change among the public,” says Anki. “You can go to many restaurants now, because a lot of people got a dog during the pandemic which led to an increased demand for them to be able to bring their dogs with them when they go shopping or out to eat. So that has opened
things up a bit for us too. It’s definitely easier to find a restaurant now that will accept dogs.”

In common with many ADI members, however, SoS faces chronic funding challenges. “We’ve seen a definite increase in the demand for dogs for wheelchair users, but the problem is the finances,” she says. It costs around 50,000 Swedish Krona (approximately €4,500 or US$4,800) to train an assistance dog to work with a wheelchair user. “Most people can’t afford that, especially if they are not working because they have a disability. In Sweden, only guide dogs get funding from the government. That’s an injustice, and we are constantly lobbying to get the rules changed.”

Despite her personal challenges, Anki says she’ll never stop campaigning for a better deal for wheelchair users and their assistance dogs. “When I started SoS people had no idea about the different types of assistance dog,” she recalls. “Guide dogs, yes - but there were no assistance dogs for people with other types of disability. It’s getting better - now I hear people say to their children, ‘No, you can’t pet that dog because it’s working’. That used to be very rare, but now they know it’s a working dog because they recognise the harness.”