Fake Support Dogs

JOhnH said:
As much as I love animals (even dogs), I wouldn't want it to be legal for anyone to take any animal anywhere. There would have to be behavior standards and the standards of trained service animals is a good start.

I've been in restaurants with dogs barking, pooping and begging. That ruins it for people with well behaved dogs.

But I'd still rather see dogs barking, pooping and begging than kids doing the same thing.
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In Europe there are no prohibitions from bringing your dog/pet in any establishment. You will always find a cat somewhere, or a dog sitting next to their owner while they eat. It just isn't a problem.:dunno:
 
Henning said:
In Europe there are no prohibitions from bringing your dog/pet in any establishment. You will always find a cat somewhere, or a dog sitting next to their owner while they eat. It just isn't a problem.:dunno:
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This is an interesting comment to me. My wife and I went to Sweden last fall. One thing we noticed was that dogs there were very much better behaved than dogs (by and large) here. This was a bit of a trial to my wife who loves dogs and likes to interact with them. These dogs were trained to ignore other people. On the trams, on the subways, in restaurants, just on the sidewalk in general. She wanted to greet, pet and play with the dogs but realized if she did the dogs would get in trouble, so she refrained.

I think this level of training (if it's consistent through Europe) makes it easy to see why pets are allowed everywhere. They behave! This is not true in the US.

John
 
jsstevens said:
This is an interesting comment to me. My wife and I went to Sweden last fall. One thing we noticed was that dogs there were very much better behaved than dogs (by and large) here. This was a bit of a trial to my wife who loves dogs and likes to interact with them. These dogs were trained to ignore other people. On the trams, on the subways, in restaurants, just on the sidewalk in general. She wanted to greet, pet and play with the dogs but realized if she did the dogs would get in trouble, so she refrained.

I think this level of training (if it's consistent through Europe) makes it easy to see why pets are allowed everywhere. They behave! This is not true in the US.

John
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I noticed the same thing when traveling Europe. It almost seemed like the dogs were drugged the way they just quietly lay at their master's feet in restaurants.
 
cgrab said:
I remember a flight from Kiev to Dnepropetovsk on a Ukraine airlines flight. After the passengers were loaded they loaded the goats. They were not companion animals but as Henning said somebody's future rations.
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Amelia said:
Our family raised a beautiful English Lab, 16 months of puppy-chewing, housebreaking, loving, obedience training, and we had a ball with him and his impish sense of humor. He was our 25th exchange student, a wonderful dog, and as soon as he had flawless public manners, we would put his guide-dog puppy vest on him, and he went everywhere with us. It was part of his training to learn how to act around crowds, on escalators, in the back seat of a Mooney, in restaurants, around other dogs, cats and squirrels. to "hurry-up" and pee on command, to lie down beside us at the table, and not beg, to never tug on a leash, and to take normal life in stride. He went on to his advanced guide-dog training, to become a dear man's best friend. The blind-from-birth man said, "Thank you for this dog. For the first time in my whole life, I ain't scared no more. He has literally saved my life more than once."

But I must admit to a bit of skepticism about the concept of a therapy Yorkie. And share the impatience with our medicalization of every deviation from the mean. I host few dinner parties these days, because I am too crabby to figure out who is allergic to, sensitive to, opposed to, and simply unaccustomed to- what. It's as if everybody thinks my kitchen is a short-order restaurant, and it seems a little rude to give them each directions to Burger King, where they can indeed have it their way. And unless your Therapy Pig, your Therapy Chihuahua, and your Therapy Snake are certified to have exquisite manners, my kitten and I aren't going to be thrilled to host them.
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We have two English Chocolate Labs. There is no dog like that breed.
 
Jf1450 said:
Ok, I don’t post much but this thread strikes close to home. To illustrate what it takes to become a *real* service dog…

We, actually my wife, is a volunteer puppy raiser (PR) for Canine Companions for Independence (cci.org). CCI provides service dogs free of charge to those in need. All the pups (goldens, labs and golden / lab crosses) are bred within a 90 mile radius of the CCI headquarters in Santa Rosa, CA then at 8 weeks of age flown around the country to the PR’s. The PR’s then spend the next 16 months raising, providing basic obedience and agility training, teaching them to be good citizens and in general provide a loving home. Then, at about 18 months of age, the pups are turned back over to the CCI regional hq for another six months of advanced training. After that they are paired with an individual with a need and go through another two weeks of training with their new forever owner. Only 40% of the dogs make the cut and go on to be a true service dog. Yes, it is a tear jerker for the PR’s to give them up after so long but we know that going in and there are those with needs greater than ours. Besides, the dogs don't belong to us, they belong to CCI. The pups that don't go on to graduate and be a service dog are offered first to the puppy raiser, then to an individual that had a part in the raising of the dog or to satisfy a long list of fully vetted individuals wanting a wonderful pet.

To show how obedient they are, last Sunday Karen took Knight (our current 16 month old pup in training) to a CCI PR outing at a restaurant in Richmond. Since it is a 1 1/2 hour drive back home they had to leave early and in the parking lot a lady expressed surprise that she didn’t even realize a dog was in the restaurant. Karen smiled at her and said “actually, there are seven dogs in there”. :)

Meet Knight, our current pup who goes back for advanced training in May. That is actually his food on the floor and his paws. They dare not even try to eat anything off the floor. And he is just a pup yet in training.

Don’t get me started on internet sales of fake service dog vests.

-jeff
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Wow Jeff...all my mutts can say is:

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The people who are sarcastically making fun of the OP for even daring to bring this up simply don't appreciate the problem this ridiculous law has caused. Here's why:

We own a hotel, and are VERY pet friendly. We are on BringFido.com, we built an off-leash dog park for our pet owners, and love our own dog life family.

That said, we understand that most people do not want to stay in hotel rooms that have had animals in them. This may be a personal preference, or it may, in fact, be a life-threatening allergy. From where I am sitting, the reason is irrelevant -- if they want a room that hasn't a dog in it, that's what I'm going to give them.

So, we have pet-friendly rooms, and no-pet rooms, for this very reason.

Now, along comes someone with one of these "comfort dogs", or whatever they're called this week. BY LAW, even if all of my pet-friendly rooms are full, I MUST provide them with a room.

This creates a huge problem for us, as we guarantee a hypoallergenic room to those who ask for a "NO PET" room. What should I tell them, now that I am forced, at the tip of a spear, to violate this promise?

The whole thing is just B.S. Bottom line: ADA is the most abused law ever written. It needs to be hugely modified, but neither political party wants to sit in hearings opposite a bunch of sick people claiming that their civil rights have been violated -- so they let the abuse continue.
 
Henning said:
In Europe there are no prohibitions from bringing your dog/pet in any establishment. You will always find a cat somewhere, or a dog sitting next to their owner while they eat. It just isn't a problem.:dunno:
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That was not our experience in Munich, Dachau, or Salzburg.
 
Jay Honeck said:
The people who are sarcastically making fun of the OP for even daring to bring this up simply don't appreciate the problem this ridiculous law has caused. Here's why:

We own a hotel, and are VERY pet friendly. We are on BringFido.com, we built an off-leash dog park for our pet owners, and love our own dog life family.

That said, we understand that most people do not want to stay in hotel rooms that have had animals in them. This may be a personal preference, or it may, in fact, be a life-threatening allergy. From where I am sitting, the reason is irrelevant -- if they want a room that hasn't a dog in it, that's what I'm going to give them.

So, we have pet-friendly rooms, and no-pet rooms, for this very reason.

Now, along comes someone with one of these "comfort dogs", or whatever they're called this week. BY LAW, even if all of my pet-friendly rooms are full, I MUST provide them with a room.

This creates a huge problem for us, as we guarantee a hypoallergenic room to those who ask for a "NO PET" room. What should I tell them, now that I am forced, at the tip of a spear, to violate this promise?

The whole thing is just B.S. Bottom line: ADA is the most abused law ever written. It needs to be hugely modified, but neither political party wants to sit in hearings opposite a bunch of sick people claiming that their civil rights have been violated -- so they let the abuse continue.
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Not if all the rooms are booked...;););););):wink2::wink2::wink2::wink2:
 
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I'm not a pet person. I like animals though, I just don't like being tied down by one. I don't really like having dogs around me that much, it is fine if other people do, and it does not bother me. I also like cats, but I am allergic to cats, to the point that I feel like I can't breath. I mean, I have a serious reaction to cat hair. If someone happened to have a support cat with them, I don't know what I would do. I think that I might have to get off the flight.
 
Max, sounds to me like, for your affliction, you need a support pit bull that likes to eat support cats.

Problem solved! ;)
 
I like dogs, I have no issue with dogs, I think service dogs are great. I abhor liars and people who circumvent the rules. The only part of the service dog rules I wish were different is, businesses should be allowed some way of vetting that a dog really is a service dog. As the law is now, you really can't even ask.
 
mikeinbama said:
I like dogs, I have no issue with dogs, I think service dogs are great. I abhor liars and people who circumvent the rules. The only part of the service dog rules I wish were different is, businesses should be allowed some way of vetting that a dog really is a service dog. As the law is now, you really can't even ask.
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You touched on a great point. We cannot even ask for proof that it's a service dog!
 
jsstevens said:
This is an interesting comment to me. My wife and I went to Sweden last fall. One thing we noticed was that dogs there were very much better behaved than dogs (by and large) here. This was a bit of a trial to my wife who loves dogs and likes to interact with them. These dogs were trained to ignore other people. On the trams, on the subways, in restaurants, just on the sidewalk in general. She wanted to greet, pet and play with the dogs but realized if she did the dogs would get in trouble, so she refrained.

I think this level of training (if it's consistent through Europe) makes it easy to see why pets are allowed everywhere. They behave! This is not true in the US.

John
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I don't think it's training. I think it's pheromones, and the dogs are just responding to the mellow pheromone messages reflecting their owners' states of minds. Americans (and our pheromones), on the other hand, are more stressed out and neurotic: and therefore so are our dogs.

Rich
 
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