This pisses me off to no end.
Honestly? If a dog is wearing a photo ID or certain patches/vests, I would be willing to bet the dog is fake. Those who have real service dogs know that ID/certification is not required, and any certification you're going to find aside from with an actual program (and they really only certify their own dogs) is going to be a scam. Aside from that, behavior gives it away pretty quickly.
I have a vest with patches for Logan, and a harness with one small patch on the front. I use either both, or the harness alone. I've noticed that I get less questions with just the harness, with one exception - if I'm going to Lowe's and I DON'T use the vest, EVERY employee will try to pet my dog. I'm assuming tihs is because they allow dogs anyway, so unless it's really glaringly obvious he's a working dog, they assume he's a pet.
We had an aggressive dog in at the clinic last week. This dog was purchased a few years ago to be a service dog, but quickly became WAY too aggressive, and is otherwise overall very poorly trained (not even leash manners). We were all under the impression this dog had been washed out after the vet said he's not suited to being a service dog...and then to our horror, the guy says he still takes his dog to Walgreens and grocery stores sometimes :yikes: I hope I NEVER run into that dog in a store.
Which brings up another point. There are two kinds of "fake" service dogs. Those that belong to actual disabled people who are desperate, uninformed, or misinformed. They need a service dog, and they THINK their dog is a service dog, when it's really not (usually because of lack of training and/or poor temperament). Then there are those that belong to people who are not disabled and do not need a service dog and just want to drag along Princess Fluffy Snookums because they can or because they want attention. The former I generally call huggers, the latter I call fakers.