What is or is not a service dog? What challaneges can fake service dogs create?

What is a "service dog"? 

For those that do not have a service dog, nor interact with the service dog community, to them its just a dog they see in public, that they greatly want to pet and/or distract, some even assume it has had military service. 

A service dog is not a pet, it is not a dog that merely provides comfort for those with emotional struggles and its soul purpose is not to provide love to the masses. A service dog, is medical equipment that is specially trained to do specific tasks to help their disabled handler mitigate their disABILITIES, often allowing them to maintain their independence. They are no longer for the visually and hearing impaired either, as time has realized the vast ways in which they can impact the lives of those that are disABLED.

Service dogs are now being used to help those with diabetes by alerting to highs or lows well before their handler might do a blood sugar check. They are able to bring them their "kits" and medical supplies needed should they be without of reach during an event. Service dogs are helping those with balance issues or other genetic issues that might make balance or walking a challenges. Service dogs are helping those with heart issues by alerting to high and low blood pressures and even abnormal rythms and some dogs are trained to alert to an oncoming seizure and assist during the event.  Service dogs can even assist those with prosthetics or rely on such things as crutches retrieve them should they be to far away.  

These are just a few of the examples that service dogs can and do do on a daily basis. These are specialized and specially trained dogs that undergo temperment testing and hundreds before placement and thousands of hours of training throughout their lifetime. Those raised from puppies spend the first 12-18 months learning basic and advanced obedience while being exposed to every possible public scenario. They are taught not to react to their surroundings, not to take items from floors, not to notice those walking by them, nor other service dogs or even fake service dogs. This training continues as they then move onto their task training where they learn in upwards of a 50+ commands to assist their disABLED handler. 

What is not a service dog? 
Your pet, your companion who keeps you calm by sitting on your lap, by kissing your face, by allowing you to pet it when you feel sad or upset. Just because your dog has what you feel to be good training, social skills and helps you anxiety, does not mean that it is your service dog, nor does buying it vests, or registering it online with companies who make you feel like they are legit. 

A service dog is trained to do tasks on command, not simply just be there, and they are trained to do multiple tasks, often 10+. While there is no actual ID or certification for service dogs (YET) this still does not mean your dog is a service dog and allowed to go everywhere with you. What you have is an emotional support animal or (ESA) which is absolutely fantastic! With a letter from your doctor stating their necessity for your severe anxiety issues, this will afford your ESA housing rights and the ability to fly with you, however, it does NOT give them full access to the community as a service dog does. 

Again, service dogs have been specially trained, have undergone testing and they have been exposed to just about every situation they could encounter in public to ensure that they either have no reaction at all, or do not react in a way that could put anyone in harm and certainly do not sit on nor at tables with you. 

Please know that when you bring your pets into stores where they do not belong, and you claim them to be a service dog while they are sitting in carts, barking at everyone, wandering all over far from your side, paying attention to everything around them, going up to strangers, or relieving themselves in the store, you are making it harder for those that are disABLED and rely on their service dogs. All it takes is one incident from someone claiming their dog to be a service dog to leave a sour taste in a businesses mouth and create prejudice for the legitimate teams that come behind you. 

Being disABLED and having a service dog is hard enough in public, with all the stares, constant interruptions, people trying to pet and distract, the last thing any handler wants to face is scrutiny or to actually be asked to leave because of someone elses behavior in the past. While it may sound great to be able to bring your dog with you everywhere, the reality of it is, those that have service dogs, would give anything to be able to do things on their own and just make a quick trip in and out of the store without a dog.

We all love our pets, and we know that you certainly love yours, but please, understand that bringing them to places where they do not belong, DOES have an impact on legitimate service dogs even if you think it may not. Please try and undserstand and respect those with disABILITIES and the challenges that they face daily and leave your pets at home where they will wait to happily greet you upon your return!

As always, we welcome any and all questions and positive discussion!
-The Service Dog Daily

#ServiceDogDaily #ServiceDogs4Change #ServiceDogs #SDiT #TaskTrained #RespecttheVest #disABLED #FakeServiceDogs #STOPFakeServiceDogs

Welcome

Welcome to The Service Dog Daily, where it is our hope that we can provide you the latest news and resources in the service dog community. Our ultimate desire is to create a positive community for SD teams as well as the public where we can raise awareness while educating on why they are important, what separates them from other types of assistance animals and the appropriate public etiquette.

In order to encourage and inspire change, we must be the one to initiate it in a positive, passionate and contagious way. We've all had those days, where we are out with our service dog, and just want to scream in frustration with the constant distractions and what often feels like ignorance. Heres the problem, How can people learn to understand what they are doing is wrong and why if we don't take a moment to calmly and kindly explain the right way to go about it. Yes, its hard. Yes, I've had days where I have not wanted to do it, but the stores we frequent, and the customers we've seen multiple times are learning and sharing.

Together, lets make this a better and safer world for service dog teams and lets educate the public in a way that they are wanting to share it with others.

In addition to sharing news stories on service dog happenings, praising things done right in the situation and suggesting how a situation could have been better handled, we are looking for YOU to supply us with information.

To many, they believe service dogs are only for the visually or hearing impaired. They have no idea the other struggles they can assist with like autism, epilepsy, diabetes, heart issues, PTSD, rape victims and more. For those of you willing to share your story, we will be creating a questionaire and asking you to submit a few photos of you and your SD so that we can do a story a week and eventually a story a day, highlighting the amazing work that these dogs do.

We are also looking for nonprofit service dog organizations to reach out to us with information about yourselves so that we can promote you and the types of dogs you train with our goal being to create a running resource list of service dog programs in each state across the country. We will also be working on a list of all state laws as they vary from state to state.


As time goes on we will also be working with some of you to create change within your state to pass laws protecting legitimate service teams and prosecuting fake service teams. We are strong advocates for the needs of a national standard and certification and a large forum and discussion needs to take place to make this happen sooner rather than later.

The Service Dog Daily will be doing its research, and we will ensure each post shared in inline with our vision, morale and ethical standards. Please understand, that this blog or facebook page will never bash, attack or promote negativity of any kind. Further, for those that can't refrain from profanity, negativity and calls to shut down pages or target pages, you will be blocked. Not only are there two sides to every story, we firmly believe in approaching all things with a positive attitude to achieve the best outcome for all involved.

We hope that you will follow us, we encourage you to share your stories, your suggestions, your questions and more.

Thank you and more soon!

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 #Positive #ServiceDog #SDiT #tasktrained #respectthevest