Wunderbar!

This has been a great weekend so far.  

Yesterday was very enjoyable at the Octoberfest. The weather was great, the food and beer were good. We did have one minor mishap but it worked out fine...

Buster is a certified hearing dog because both my Hub and I have hearing impairments; Hub more so than I, he has about 70 percent hearing loss and wears hearing aids in both ears. So Buster has a hearing dog vest and of course in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act is supposed to be allowed to go anywhere with us...restaurants, hotels, etc, and this includes beer gardens at the Octoberfest. I was worried he would be overwhelmed by the loud music, but he wasn't fazed at all. So we went into 2 different venues without incident. We would have a beer at each one and then go to the next. 

At the third, we were allowed in, went and sat down and were listening to the music.  After about 5 minutes we were approached by a security guard who told us we couldn't have a dog with us.  Hub could not hear what the guard said, but I could. So I explained that B is a service animal and is certainly allowed to be with us.  But that guy went to get another guard, who came with 2 other backup dudes and told us we had to leave, in a very aggressive manner.  Here we are with the most innocuous, unobtrusive, well behaved dog on the planet, with his little red hearing dog vest on, and the guy is acting like we are a menace to the public. When i said that B was marked appropriately for a service dog, the guy then said he had watched us come in and B had not had his vest on when we came in!  Unbelievable!! I was speechless...how do you argue with stupidity?  Why would we have put the vest on after we got inside?

By this time, Hub was PISSED.  He and the guard got into a bit of an argument.  Finally, we just decided to leave and went to the next venue, where they let us in without a second glance at B. We asked to speak to a festival supervisor, and after a few minutes a very nice gentleman showed up. After we explained what had happened, he was MORTIFIED!  He said they had numerous meetings every year with staff about the ADA regulations. We explained we were not looking to make trouble, we just want people to be educated about the law and thought someone in "real" authority (as opposed to a rent-a-cop) should know what happened, so that they wouldn't make that mistake again and get in trouble with someone who is not quite so forgiving. He said don't worry, he would make sure that "guard" learned his lesson. 

So we enjoyed the rest of our day at the festival...the town of Mt. Angel is adorable and we would not hesitate to come back again.  One bad apfel didn't spoil it for us! (Apfel...get it? Haha)

More tomorrow!