[nagdu] I encountered a fake service dog today.

Thu May 7 16:59:42 UTC 2015

Deanna,

Questions about service dog training often leave me scratching my head. 
In regards to the person who asked you, my first thought is that the dog 
was left in the car because it can't behave in public... So it might 
still do service dog tasks for a person with a disability and need 
training to be fit for public access. Or the person could be confused 
about service dogs and what the phrase "service dog training" actually 
means. That phrase seems to have become some nebulous, meaningless thing 
that folks just don't get. So when someone asks me about service dog 
training as a general concept, I flounder around trying to figure out 
what they are actually asking. Do they want to know about how to train 
the dog to perform service dog tasks? Are they referring to training for 
public access? Then there's determining in some at least sorta tactful 
way whether it is an able-bodied person wanting to take their pet to the 
store or a person with a disability wanting to train their dog as a 
service dog or get a dog to train as a service dog.

What I find is that a lot of people do know the difference or are able 
to grasp the finer points and distinctions, so it can be a good 
discussion. If they are able-bodied, they seem to be able to figure out 
for themselves that there is no turning their dog into a service dog in 
the legal sense for public access. As far as I am concerned, they are 
still welcome to train their dog to pick things up or alert them to this 
or that or whatever they want to train their dog to do, and teaching 
good manners is never a bad thing. Have fun! But they are not qualified 
to be accompanied by the dog in a place of public access where pets are 
not allowed, so the dog will not be a service dog in that sense. For 
that matter, if I meet a deaf person on my way to the store and hand 
over my guide dog, then suddenly the dog is not a service dog because it 
is individually trained to do work for a blind person but is not trained 
to alert for a deaf person, so the deaf person does not have the right 
to be accompanied by that particular dog. It's an oversimplified and 
rather silly example, but it does seem to help clear things up.

Some folks have a dreamy, mystical notion about how wonderful it is to 
raise and train a service dog. They're just gooey about it. I'm not sure 
they really want to make their sweet puppy into a service dog when they 
say they do, but once they realize it would mean giving up their sweet 
puppy to a person with a disability for whom the dog was trained, they 
lose interest. I guess they've just heard some mushy nonsense about the 
wonderful magic of service dogs making the world a better place and how 
dedicated and heroic the people who raise and train service dogs are, 
but they haven't actually thought about it until they see mine. /shrug/

Able-bodied folks who just want to take their dogs to the store are the 
minority of those that talk to me about it. Some give up the notion once 
they realize that the handler's disability is a prerequisite. Others 
know full well what they are doing and that they are committing fraud by 
claiming a disability they don't have. They don't care as far as I can 
tell. They are willing to lie to get what they want just because they 
want it, and they don't even care who knows. They should have what 
someone else has but without paying the price, so if those lucky, 
spoiled disabled people can take their dogs into the store, then there 
you have it. Sigh.

I think the articles that have been going around the past couple of 
years about "fake service dogs" and "fake service dog gear" add to the 
confusion, so trying to clear up misunderstandings engendered by those 
articles is really annoying to me. It seems that these days articles 
about service dogs and even about fakers include a clear explanation of 
what makes a  service dog for the purposes of the ADA, so that's a 
relief. People don't actually find it that hard to understand.

Tami

On 05/07/2015 06:44 AM, Deanna Lewis via nagdu wrote:
> This reminds me of something that happened to me last week. My apartment building was having plumbing problems, so the water was turned off for several hours. I had to go to the laundromat. As we got out of my Mom's car, this little Chihuahua type dog was in the car next to us. He was barking like crazy and trying to get out of the window. My Mom said there was a person in the car too, and they didn't try to correct the dog. My dog just ignored him... Then, about 15-20 minutes later this woman comes up to me asking me about service dog training. She then goes on to say that her service dog is a barker, and then we realized that the dog she was talking about was the one in the car. We told her to try basic obedience training. My question is this, if it really was a service dog (like she claimed) then why was it left in the car? Although, I am glad that she didn't bring him inside since he would have been a big nuisance.
> Deanna and Mambo
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nagdu [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Mardi Hadfield via nagdu
> Sent: Thursday, May 07, 2015 1:35 AM
> To: NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users
> Cc: Mardi Hadfield
> Subject: [nagdu] I encountered a fake service dog today.
>
>     I was in the grocery store today and this elderly couple had a poodle type dog in their grocery cart. The dog spotted Neechee and went nuts,Barking and growling at Neechee. It almost jumped out of the cart. It had a red vest on but no patches on it. It did not say service dog on the vest either. I was so proud of Neechee as she just guided me past the unruly dog,and ignored it.The woman kept yelling at the man to jerk it's leash to shut it up.As I past them I said ,loud enough for them to here,that is no service dog! Service dogs don't act like that! They said nothing.Last week I saw a man bringing a small puppy in to the grocery store, My friend Dave, said the puppy looked like it was too young to have had any of it's shots yet.No collar or leash on it. Frys Grocery refuse to do any thing about these situations. I have talked to them many time,still
> they refuse to do anything.   GRUMBLE,GRUMBLE, GRUMBLE!!!    Mardi and
> Shaman,retired and Neechee.
> http://wolfsinger-lakota.blogspot.com/
> http://wolfsinger2-thegoldendragon.blogspot.com
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