People cheating with their dogs

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It's not what you think.

Some people are ordering vests for their pets online and passing them off as service animals for the disabled just so they can take them everywhere with them since once a pet has a vest, he can enter any business with his owner and cannot be denied access.

What do you all think should be done about this?

License numbers on the vests, and a web-accessible database of valid numbers?

Well, I might see if I can get one for my chihuahua. I don't have a permit, but she does calm me. I was once kicked out of a video store with her and I was carrying her for heaven's sake. People are a bit too fussy about the presence of animals for my taste.

If the animal behaves,doesn't smell(who would want to set next to a stinky wet dog in a cafe),
Isn't yapping,restrained, vaccinated,and pest free ,people should be able to take a pet that calms their anxiety.
These same rules should apply to children in public also.I've seen dogs that were better behaved than some children.

I understand why it's important to have service animals and how important they are, I am not discounting them but what I want to know is, what if you have a well behaved, clean, pet and you just want to take it with you places? Why shouldn't you be allowed? A dog is a dog and if one person can have a dog in a restaurant or grocery store, why can't someone else so long as the dog is clean and trained to be calm? People sight sanitary and health concerns in places where food is sold but if one dog is let in, it's not any different from letting others in. Clean pets should be allowed in but with guidelines the ones service animals must abide by, like, they have to be trained to lay down and be quiet when they are not on duty. I have seen service animals and they all do this so no one really notices them so any dog that's allowed in should have the same type of training imo.

Unfortunately, those criteria are too much for some pet owners to meet. Here in Portland, the laws regarding service animals don't place any standards at all, and so-called 'service' dogs have attacked other dogs on public transport and poop inside.

I love dogs, and would love to be able to take mine with me (he's better trained than many of these other animals, and has a fantastic canine NT personality - loves people, loves other animals), but people who take poorly trained, aggro animals into public make it harder for me to take my dog anywhere b/c no one knows if he's going to poop on them or bite them until they get to know him.

It's *fantastic* that the range of employment for service animals is expanding, but there should be some sort of standards as to which dogs can be considered 'service animals.'

People do that all the time and I know that they are lying about it being a service animal once the dog takes a dump on the floor in the store and i have to clean it up.

Last edited by AspieOtaku on 02 Nov 2013, 7:22 am, edited 1 time in total.

What I am saying is, people with well trained, clean, dogs should be allowed to enter the store with the service dog vest but if someone comes in with a dog that is not well behaved or clean, and has the vest on, the store should be allowed to tell the owner they have to leave at their own discretion since the dog obviously hasn't had any of the required training and the person just wants to bring their pet.

To me, it's obvious when someone has a genuine service dog. I have seen examples when my first instinct told me the situation was not as it seemed.

My service dog is trained to get me the best tables at restaurants.

Okay, just kidding.

I understand that some animals have a calming effect.

However I would say that registered service dogs should only registered as such, if the directly sustaining living.

Yes there is scope for comfort and confidence animals, but it if fair to get questioned about it. I don't think ti should be an automatic pass.

The biggest factors should be level of training of the animal, and role.

I'm pretty sure only specific breeds of dog can work as service or guide dogs, specifically black or golden labradors.

Some people really have a serious need for their pet to be close by so why can't they? if the person is serious enough to train it themselves or get someone else to, and keep it very clean, the way service animals are kept, they shouldn't be deprived of having their pet by their side imo. Most people will not take the time to train and groom, so this will automatically weed them out. There won't be too many dogs in one place.

That's not true; other breeds of dogs can be service dogs, but Labradors and other retrievers tend to be the most common because they are smart, trainable, and have excellent personalities. Most formal service-dog training programs have their own dedicated breeding programs, and most stick to a specific breed. German Shepherds and Belgian Malinois are probably the next most common, but they're not as tolerant of strangers as laboradors. They're a little more high-strung.

Some dogs can sense when a human with epilepsy is going to have a seizure, and those ones are taken and trained for the person whom they sense, regardless of the breed, because it's a rare talent and no one knows how to train for it, or even if it can be trained; likewise, dogs who sense when a diabetic's blood sugar is low. You'll see some pretty funny-looking mutts sometimes wearing service harnesses, but their breed doesn't mean that they're not legitimate.

On the other hand, if a dog poops inside, you can be pretty damn sure that it's not a trained service dog unless it's been inside for 8 hours or more, or it has some sort of gastrointestinal distress.

I have considered getting one of those things for my dog, but he wouldn't pull it off convincingly, as he is very impatient and often pulls restlessly or whines if I have to stand in a queue and he wants to leave. Also he gets angry if he sees another dog, and makes a terrible noise. So he does not fit the stereotype of an impeccably behaved, calm, well-trained service animal. Nonetheless he is effectively an Autism Support Dog already, even if not in an official capacity.

And how shall others know if a dog is well trained or not? By the "dog driver license"? Or an certificate of the dogs behavior from dog school? Official service dogs are automatically trained, so if its a service dog, you know that he normally will behave. But how shall you know that by others dogs? Its not that I am absolutely fanatic about it, so when I worked in a shop and an old lady asked me if she were allowed to take her minidog with her, sitting in her handbag, that was additional in the shopping-car, its was ok for me as long as he didnt bark. (She told me, that he was afraid of being left behind, since someone didnt see her dog and rammed him with a shopping car O_o, so it was really a mini-minidog.) Additional this way, neither could he run around in the shop and if the dog starts doing a mess, the mess will be in her handbag this way, so its totally her problem, not mine.

But if the dog is too big to be kept in an handbag in the shopping cart, I have to relie on the owners, that the dog wont run around or poop somewhere. And people that I dont know, I cannot relie on. Additional, with dogs that dont fit in handbags, it is rather unlikely that someone will ram them with an shopping car, because of not seeing them. If you are not the shop owner, and you allow a customer to do something against the shop owner rules, and then there is trouble with the dog, then other customers can complain about it to the shop-owner, and then you are the one that will be blamed for allowing it, and risc your job.

To me it's obvious when a dog isn't trained. even when they have the vest. The cheaters are relying on people automatically seeing the vest and being fooled into thinking the dog is a service animal and they would never dare tell the owner they cannot bring them inside the business. It's what the cheaters know when they put the vest on their pet. What I am saying, is, it should be less about the vest and more about the relationship between the dog and the person with them. If it's obvious it's a pet relationship, the employees should feel vindicated in asking them to leave without fear of repercussion, even if the dog has a vest and license. You can get a fake ID badge for your pet over the internet too btw.