Good thing Harper's not a monkey

Amen! And about time too. I have myself witnessed people bringing untrained dogs into public places, the dogs wearing some sort of “official” vest proclaiming it a “Therapy dog”. The dogs jumped on, growled and barked at other customers, jumped on shelves, knocking merchandise off and took dumps in the aisles with their owners not bothering to clean them up. I raise puppies for a guide dog school and as such must ask permission to bring the pups in to public places in order that they gain valuable training on how to behave when they are official guides. Because of the bad behaviour of these so-called therapy dogs, my pups and I have been tarred with the same brush so to speak.

In another instance a man asked me to train him a guide dog. I told him that in no way was i qualified to do that and that he should apply to a qualified dog guide school for his dog. He did not want to go that route and i learned later that he is not sight-impared. Not only that, but that he did not want a guide dog, but a therapy dog. He has since acquired a “therapy” dog and has taken the untrained animal onto public buses, into grocery stores, et al. The dog has misbehaved in all these instances and when the proprietors have asked him to remove his dog from their premesis, he has complained to his doctor who then contacts the store, transportation office, whatever and tells them that under the law, they cannot challenge this man. I hope this new ruling will put a stop to this sort of thing.

In training two goldens for the seeing eye we had to ask the owner of a small clothing store or the post office. We carried a card stating that we are just in training and if we were not allowed we respected the owners wishes. Great post on those fake people.

Hi Beth,
I read your article on Bark.com and completely agree that the behavior of the animal matters more than the species. I have never come across any other service animals besides dogs and 1 miniature guide horse, so I am no expert on the different types, however I believe that any service animal that is protected under the law needs to be able to do 2 things. 1) perform a task (not simply its presence) that assists someone with a disability, and 2) be properly socialized and display good behavior at all times while in public. I have seen videos about the Helping Hands monkeys for quadriplegics, and they can perform tasks for their person that a dog just isn’t physically capable of doing. I’ve never seen one in public, but from the videos it seems like they are socialized (they are withe a monkey version of a “puppy raiser” for a number of years before going into formal training like guide dogs).
I have run into a few “service dogs” whom I believe were impostors.
My apartment complex used to have a “no dogs” rule. A neighbor in the next building wanted a dog, so she got one and also got a service dog tag for it so it could stay with her. I was surprised she did this, especially since she is a retired cop, she must know this is fraud. To my knowledge, the dog does not perform any tasks to help this lady with her “disability” (she has slight hearing loss, and some balance issues). It’s a small dog, so doesn’t provide support when she’s walking, and doesn’t alert her to noises such as timers going off etc like a proper dog for the deaf would do. I have walked this dog, and he shows aggression towards other dogs we pass (thankfully not towards my guide, if he did I wouldn’t walk him anymore). He makes a lot of noise and relieves wherever he wants to outside, and occasionally goes in the house as well. My neighbor does not take him with her when she goes places such as the bank, supermarket, doctors office…so she gets along fine without his presence. The thing that irks me is the fact that she thinks she could (if she ever would I don’t know) take him into a store just because he has a service dog tag. Why should he be allowed in, and possibly jeopardize the image of real service dogs who have a high level of training in both performing tasks and proper behavior? In my opinion, it’s way too easy to get ahold of one of these tags (she got it from city hall, not an internet site) if this woman was able to acquire one for her dog who has had little to no training.
Another time I came across a doubtful “service dog” was at a
convention. This wasn’t a convention for the blind, and my sighted friend told me this big GSD did not have a guide dog harness on. We walked past it, and this dog went absolutely nuts when it saw Bambi. It started barking very loudly, and my friend said it was jumping and trying to lunge at my guide. The woman with the dog couldn’t seem to get it under control either, so we just walked away and hoped we didn’t encounter it again. Well…we did. I walked into a lecture, and about 5 seconds after the door shut behind me I heard the barking again. The lecture had already started, so the dog’s barking interrupted the speaker. Even though it wasn’t my dog causing the scene, I promptly exited the room so the lecture could continue. We didn’t come across that dog again during the remainder of the convention, but I couldn’t help wondering why it was there in the first place. Service dogs should be well behaved in public at all times, and puppy raisers of service dogs in training should make sure their puppy is mature enough, and their behavior is stable before taking it to a 4 day convention.
Here is a good example of a mature puppy at a convention:

(Haha shameless plug…I love this webseries!)
Has anything similar happened to you, like a wanna-be service dog barking at you and your guide?
Best,
Kate and Bambi

Beth,
I would never let anyone take Bambi in harness anywhere, but especially not if I wasn’t present. Admittedly I have let curious friends and family “test drive” Bambi, but only when I’m leading her by the leash along a flat path outside, and never more than a few steps.
Kate & Bambi

thanks for explaining all this. Never occurred to me there would hav to be rules. Sorry to say it’s no surprise to me that people broke the rules, though.

Great comments! To Erin and Jasmine, I hope you know that guide dog owners everywhere see you puppy raisers as the true heroes of the whole training process –what a generous act of kindness to raise a puppy for a person who is blind and then let that puppy go after a year. VERY hard work on your parts and trust me, we guide dog users really appreciate it. Your comments here point out something that many people don’t understnad –it is not the *dog* who is granted the privilege to go into public venues, it is the person with the disability who has the privilege of taking a trained dog in with them. So great that you both know you have to get the store owner’s permission, just because a puppy is being trained to eventually become a guide doesn’t mean they have legal rights to go into public places. And kudos to the store owners who let you bring them in, these puppies need to learn socialization and how to behave in public venues like that.

Depends on the school where the dog was trained. Different schools have diffrent policies on how much they “monitor” graduates once they’ve completed training, and many schools (I thihnk rightfully) feel they can trust their graduates to have the maturity to do the right thing once they return home. I strongly feel that most, nearly *all* guide dog handlers do their best to follow the rules, but it only takes a few to give the rest of us a bad name. Like I said in my Bark blog, the species we really have to worry about when it comes to the use of service animals in public is, of course, the *human* species!

As a volunteer puppy raiser for a service dog organization, I appreciate the generosity of our local businesses that allow me to socialize my pup in training. As with guide dogs, it’s the early experiences that give the dogs the been there-done that attitude when they are later teamed with someone.
When we encounter resistance with a business, we find the cause is from a prior negative experience with ill-behaved dogs. Always disappointing when this happens; it’s a setback for the service dog teams and makes the road just a little tougher. Especially for those whose disability may not be obvious.
Wonderful post. Your blog is wonderful; I’m now subscribed and sorry I didn’t come across this sooner.