Mall Santa Turns Away a Girl with Autism Because of Her Pit Bull Service Dog

The Santa and the elf have been fired as they should be. Saying all pit bulls are bad, is like declaring all of one race is bad. It’s just not true. This pit bull is a service dog and all of its life it has been trained to do nothing but serve the needs of the disabled and make people feel comfortable. Plus, it was very obvious this was a good dog helping an autistic little girl. I’ll be politically incorrect here… was there a reason the Santa didn’t like dogs? Was it a religious conviction? Or was it that the child was autistic? Discrimination comes in all types and I hope this Santa is permanently unemployed over this.

From People Pets:

Looks like Santa ought to be added to his own naughty list.

On Sunday, a Santa working at The Shops at Mission Viejo in California turned away a girl with autism because she brought along her pit bull service dog, ABC reports.

Abcde Santos, 7, waited in line for half an hour with her service dog Pup-Cake to see Mr. Claus, but was greeted with an upsetting surprise once she finally reached the front of the line. St. Nick refused to see Abcde – pronounced ab-suh-dee – because he was leery of the 5-year-old pit bull accompanying her. The Santos family offered to take Pup-Cake outside so Abcde could have her turn, but the Santa still refused.

“The fact that Abcde was able to wait in line for 30 minutes was something that was to be highly celebrated,” family friend Julie Miller told ABC. “Any person who has a child on the spectrum would look at that and think, ‘Wow.’ ”

“The dog is not a breed when it is a service animal,” Miller continued. “A service animal is a highly trained companion to an individual and the breed is secondary. The Americans with Disabilities Act gives an individual with a disability the right to have their companion and service animal with them to do the job that they’re trained to do.”

Pup-Cake has been trained to help Abcde feel more comfortable, and travels with her wherever she goes. Miller shared that the Santos family is refraining from interviews about the incident, but they are heartbroken by what happened and the effect it has had on their daughter.

The Santos family contacted The Shops at Mission Viejo shortly after being turned away, and posted on Facebook that the mall reacted quickly and supportively. Shortly after receiving the family’s complaint, The Shops issued a personal apology to Abcde and also posted one publicly to their own Facebook page.

“We do not condone the behavior displayed by Santa and have worked with our partners at Noerr, the company that hires our Santas, to replace this Santa with one that is more compassionate to our guests’ needs,” The Shops at Mission Viejo wrote. “We look forward to welcoming back the Santos family and Pup-Cake for a special Santa experience.”

Noerr also reached out to Abcde and her family to apologize and offer the little girl her own private visit with Santa, Pup-Cake included.

The Santa and elf involved in this upsetting incident have been fired, the Noerr company reports.

The store has been great over this, but the little one is obviously traumatized. That idiot Santa ruined her Christmas – I hope she regains her love and wonder for the holiday. I would hug her and Pup-Cake if I could. There is absolutely no excuse for this type of cruelty and crushing cold-heartedness, especially at this time of year for children. Both the child and the pup are the epitome of innocence – the Santa and the elf should get coal in their stockings to say the least and more appropriately a good swift kick in the keister.

Terresa Monroe-Hamilton

Terresa Monroe-Hamilton is an editor and writer for Right Wing News. She owns and blogs at NoisyRoom.net. She is a Constitutional Conservative and NoisyRoom focuses on political and national issues of interest to the American public. Terresa is the editor at Trevor Loudon's site, New Zeal - trevorloudon.com. She also does research at KeyWiki.org. You can email Terresa here. NoisyRoom can be found on Facebook and on Twitter.

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