Luther and me

When I considered bringing my guide dog, Luther home to Thailand with me for the first time, I thought it would be easy. Like the United States, Thailand has a law allowing service animals into public places, but it was neither known nor enforced because no one had a service animal or even knew what a guide dog was.

As a result, when I moved home from my college in Arkansas in 2019, I ran into trouble right away. People were either scared of Luther or wanted to pet him, and it was impossible to travel anywhere with him since service animal laws weren't enforced. My mom, a former journalist, began posting about Luther and me on Facebook to raise awareness. As we discussed the situation at our family dinner one night, my aunt suggested I make my own Facebook page to share my story.

That same night, the page "My Name is Luther" was born.

Initially, it was followed mostly by friends and family, but that changed after we posted an open letter addressing major corporations in Thailand, calling for them to respect the law. Around the same time, BBC Thai published a story detailing my first experience accessing the sky train with Luther. As a result, the open letter went viral and the Facebook page exploded, gaining over 100,000 followers within just two weeks.

For the next few months, Luther and I were featured on dozens of TV and radio shows and at public events. I met and advocated with executives of major corporations, politicians, the Bangkok governor, and even Princess Srisavangavadhana of Thailand. While I was grateful for the opportunity to share my story, notoriety took its toll. Comment sections were filled with cruel, ignorant comments accusing me of being entitled. The media also turned to me to quell their curiosity about blindness and disabilities in general. I found myself a chosen but unwilling representative of blind people in Thailand. While I knew I was privileged to receive education—and in turn, my dog—in the U.S., this privilege separated me from the rest of the Thai disabled community, many of whom still worried about how to receive an education and get a job.

Nonetheless, our effort did lead to some changes. In addition to more public awareness, multiple places, including all Bangkok public parks and a major shopping mall network called Central, now allow service dogs. There was even an effort to sponsor a group of blind Thai people to receive their first guide dogs.

Eventually, Luther and I moved back to the U.S. so I could finish my graduate degree in mental health counseling at Johns Hopkins. Today, we live a quiet life and enjoy the relative anonymity we regained as simply another blind woman with her service dog.