Hey, just wanted to apologize for not responding to this. I was pretty busy right after I posed it.
Thanks for all the replies! I read the whole thread and found it interesting with lots of different points of view.
Were the dogs vested?
Steve is certainly not perfect. He has moments. Last week at therapy he alarm-barked at the client before me. It was embarrassing, but what can you do?
It doesn't change that he's a service dog, though. He is still trained to perform tasks that make it possible for me to function in the world. That is technically all that is required.
Yes, they were all vested. I heard each owner say "yes, he's a service dog," so I'm not making assumptions.
I get where you're coming from, and understand that dogs are dogs and they all have bad days (just like we do). But one of the dogs was completely excessive - not like you're describing with Steve.
This. ^^ Strider went to an airport when he was pretty fresh out of training (if training ever really stops, lol) when we went to pick up Sael back when she came to get Logan. He was all like, "Hey cool a big echoey terminal type place with people, sliding doors, and escalators. Kinda like lots of other places I've been." Eh.
This was my thought. Moo had no socialization as a puppy and has been places like that, and for the most part, done well. A SD I would expect to go through malls and all kinds of similar places first. Actually being on a plane is a different thing, but the terminal shouldn't phase a dog that much.
A dog flew in the overhead bin?
Nope. The dog was supposed to be in a carrier under the seat (for a service dog?) but the flight attendant was making a big stink that it would only fit in the overhead bin.
Being poorly behaved in a single situation on one bad day doesn't make a the dog not legitimate. Believing that one 5 minute window to represent everything about the dog means the expectation is the dog must be perfect 100% of the time, no exception. If that is not what she means then I take it back, but that is how it sounds to me.
I just simply believe that jumping to conclusions over a single scene is rather harsh, however poorly it may have been handled. We all have bad days. I know for a fact I've done similar things out of frustration and embarrassment that I immediately regretted my poor handling of it afterward.
First, it wasn't a 5-minute situation. I was there for over 2 hours, and watched the SD was being petted and soliciting attention from flight attendants and passers-by for maybe 5-10 minutes. That was the shortest.
The other situation I watched unfold over an hour. The dog was abysmally behaved for over half an hour, and the humans were worse. I first heard a flight attendant asking them if it was a service dog, and then the dog let out an occasional alarm bark and hid under the owner's feet when people walked by their seats. Something set it off at one point, and there was constant barking for 10-15 minutes, which shushing and yelling at the dog didn't stop. They had to grab her mouth to prevent her barking, and as soon as they let go, she started again. They were finally asked by a flight attendant to put her in a crate, and that ordeal took maybe 10 minutes. She wouldn't go in with one of them holding the crate and the other pushing the dog, so they tilted the crate vertically and and picked her up to put her in it. They got her up to the shoulders and she was scrabbling wildly and whining. One had to shove her in and the other had to hold her paws. After that, there were still muffled barks, but they put all their stuff over the crate. This doesn't sound like a SDIT or a SD to me. Not even a decently trained pet. Middie would have been better.
I completely understand that everyone and every dog has bad days, and Middie and I have had similarly embarrassing moments in the past. My harsh judgment wasn't based on a moment or one particular thing, though. In fact, I don't think my original post was that harsh - I kept all that in my head.
I've never seen a fake service dog so disruptive that it would merit additional laws making life more difficult for disabled people with a legitimate, trained service dog. Trained does not just mean task trained, it means public access trained, too.
[snip]
I feel that no service dog under any circumstances should be trained to solicit attention from the public. That's a red flag for me. Dog can't do is job properly if it's worried about getting something from other people.
To the first bit - so true. I don't think either of them were so bad that they actively harmed other service dogs, but the barking one definitely did not make the flight attendants any happier about the flight.
I guess my son's dog won't be "real" because we arent't paying $20,000 for an already 2 or 3-year-old dog that comes with a nifty certificate if authenticity. To hell with the fact that we may not even get seizure alerts for that price.
Then again, others believe my son's future service dog will maul him in his sleep since it isn't a Lab or Golden, so.....oh well.
Well, if you end up with a child-eating dog, I will take him from you if you need to re-home. I have met plenty of kids that need to be nommed on.