[nagdu] fake service dogs revisited

Tue Nov 10 12:56:29 UTC 2015

I get that your frustrated.  Dealing with owners who have poor 
understandings of what a service dog is can be very difficult.

This may not actually be a service dog, but an emotional support dog, which 
is allowed in housing situations.  A service dog is the sort that goes into 
public places and does very specific tasks.  An emotional support dog 
provides comfort or emotional support to an individual with a mental concern 
documented by a health care professional.   Emotional support dogs do not do 
specific tasks, but provide comfort by their presence or natural behavior. 
They are not used in public, but only in a living situation.

Growling is certainly a problem and should be reported to your housing 
manager or other person in charge.  Personally, I believe in extending 
compassion and kindness to another dog handler, offering empathy for a bad 
day or offering handling suggestions only if the person is open to that. 
If the situation is such that you aren't comfortable approaching the other 
person, their dog is too reactive for you to get close enough for a 
conversation or you are not up for such a conversation, I'd just report to 
the people in charge of the housing and let them handle it.  I do not 
believe that we should act as the service dog police.  I know I wouldn't 
appreciate a lot of intrusive questions and judgments from another handler. 
I have and do appreciate it when people kindly tell me that my dog is 
sniffing or licking or otherwise being inappropriate and then letting me 
handle it.

Feeding the dog from the table is very inappropriate, in my opinion, but to 
the best of my knowledge it does not violate any laws.   Same goes for 
letting others feed your dog.   There is handling that will probably create 
problems for you down the road and then there is handling that intrudes on 
others rights or their health and safety.   Generally laws focus on when a 
person's actions intrude into others rights or their safety.   If folks want 
to make their lives difficult that's pretty much on them.

I'd be happy to talk more about owner training with you, if that's something 
you are interested in.

Julie
Courage to Dare: A Blind Woman's Quest to Train her Own Guide Dog is now 
available! Get the book here:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QXZSMOC
-----Original Message----- 
From: Criminal Justice Major Extraordinaire via nagdu
Sent: Tuesday, November 10, 2015 5:11 AM
To: Undisclosed-Recipient:;
Cc: Criminal Justice Major Extraordinaire
Subject: [nagdu] fake service dogs revisited

Hi, all,
I'm revisiting the subject of "fake service dogs" once again.
There is a resident in my apart complex who decided to go online, pay 
$100.00 and a vest so he could have his dog with him.
Two problems with the dog.
He has growled at Odie and I, amongst other dogs.
The growling instantly failed him as a service dog.
The individual acts like he/she (not sure of the owner being male or female, 
so refer to the person as it), claims his dog named Bolt will help calm down 
PTSD as I'm don't know if this individual has actually gone through 
counseling or not.
Here is the embarrassing part which makes me feel even more comfortable and 
I now focus on the cafeteria in our building.
It decides that while the so-called service dog allows other people feed 
human food to Bolt.
I have approached my service cordinator on this matter and would like to 
write a letter to the CEO of VOA to put a stop to this negative behavior.
What would the best approach be to handle this situation?
I want to become an owner-dog trainer as soon as I work on retiring Odie 
permanently, but have some questions.
If need be, I'm happy to have owner-dog trainers email me off list rather 
than to clog up the list.
During my time of owner-training, I want to be sure that I am a responsible 
dog handler and stick with training and consistancy like I learned with Odie 
and my previous guides.
I do have another question, but wil save it for the owner-dog trainers off 
list.
Sincerely:
Bibi and MAR son Odie
orleans24 at comcast.net
_______________________________________________
nagdu mailing list
nagdu at nfbnet.org
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nagdu_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for nagdu:
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nagdu_nfbnet.org/julielj%40neb.rr.com

-----
No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 2012.0.2258 / Virus Database: 4365/10459 - Release Date: 11/07/15 
provides comfort or emotional support to an individual with a 