[NAGDU] Fake Service Dogs Redux (Cross Posted)

Michael Babcock michael at yourownpay.com
Sat Feb 6 03:31:34 UTC 2016


The worse thing is someone can get a “certification” for there dog for $64+shipping online.
That’s it, no training, just a certification.
I wish this wasn’t the case for sure!
best.
michael Babcock
> On Feb 5, 2016, at 3:21 PM, David via NAGDU <nagdu at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> Unfortunately, I think all this fake service dog news is stirring up a lot of stuff right now.
> 
> For the record, I have been, and I am, a big Costco fan and have had incredible service from their employees.  I am also impressed with the quality of their products.  However, I had an incident at Costco yesterday where I was told by the person at the door that if Claire Rose was a service animal I needed to fill out a form.  I told the person that I did not need to fill out a form, which two questions I was willing to answer, and that I had already answered one of them.  He did not ask what Claire Rose did for me, and told me that it was corporate policy and that I had to fill out the form.  I was in a hurry so I walked past him.  After my denial of service from Uber earlier in the day, I probably was bit grumpy.
> 
> I called and left a message for the store manager.  He returned my call today and said that there was no form for anyone to fill out, but that people at the door were told to ask customers with service animals to read a memo informing them that Costco could not allow service animals to ride in carts.  This sounds entirely reasonable to me from a health standpoint.  We talked for quite a while and I think the guy at the door is going to get some retraining.  We had a long discussion about the problem stores are having with fake service animals and how they feel that they are stuck once the person says that Fluffy is a service animal.  I explained that animals that misbehave are very likely not service animals.  He said he also understood that people with legitimate service animals would likely not put them in carts, or would their animals bark and snarl at customers.
> 
> This problem is not going to go away, folks.  Companies obviously believe that their hands are tied.  When so many people increasingly feel entitled to bring their pets anywhere they wish, it is lawsuit-suicide for stores and restaurants to call the police in the event that it turns out that the dog that appears to be untrained is actually a trained epilepsy, insulin, or whatever, alerter, even in states where fake service animal legislation is in place. after all, how are police going to determine whether the dog is a fake, or not. The criminal statutes for faking it simply have no reliable method for enforcement and we will increasingly become the targets of suspicion and accusation. I don't think that there are any easy answers, but we're seeing a surge of reactions from airline passengers and news organizations and we need a unified solution, not a state by state dribble of ineffective patches.
> 
> The public is becoming angry.  Store and restaurant owners are becoming frustrated.  We are getting angry.
> 
> In my opinion, because of the free-for-all attitude among those who want pet privileges equal to ours, I think the time has come to try to address a federal certificate, or ID, that perhaps is training school triggered in the case of program trained animals, or maybe regulations legitimizing training school IDs. We are also going to have to bite the bullet and figure out how to get self-trained animals certified without creating yet another bureaucracy.   The turmoil is not going to calm and I think we need to be proactive.  With so many having worked so hard to win our protected status, it is a bit of a disappointment to think that it could be eroded.  There is no doubt in my mind, however, that the fake dog issue will erode that status if we don't collectively figure out how best to effectively deal with it.
> 
> David and Claire Rose in Clearwater, FL
> 
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