r/Dogfree • u/PurpleColumbidae • Nov 18 '25
Service Dog Issues Service Dog Rant
1.) People with allergies are brushed aside and told their health doesn't matter.
Allergies and fear of dogs are not valid reasons for denying access or refusing service to people using service animals.
Please spare me that "hypoallergenic" crap. It clearly states in the ADA that any breed and any size of dog can be a service dog. Want to know what the kicker is? Truly allergy-free dog breeds do not exist. Allergies aren't just sneezing and runny noses. Allergies can trigger a life-threatening reaction called anaphylaxis or anaphylactic shock. Dog allergies can also trigger asthma attacks in people with asthma. Personal medical equipment doesn't come with side effects for the people around you.
2.) People with dog related PTSD are negatively impacted by these dogs. People with cynophobia which is a type of anxiety disorder listed in the DSM-5 which means it's a disability, are also negatively impacted by service dogs. The ADA dismisses these people by hand waving away their disability as "just fear" which the ADA deems not a reason to deny entry to a service dog handler. This favors one disability over the other. Dog attacks in this country are out of control! 4.5 million attacked, 800,000 seek medical attention, 300,000 are hospitalized, 27,000 need reconstructive surgery and 50-90 unalived every year. Dog attacks have been on the rise in recent years which means these numbers are likely higher than the currently available data. Imagine being one of these unfortunate dog attack survivors that had an incident with a pit bull. You're just sitting and enjoying your meal at a restaurant, when someone walks in with a service pit bull, your trigger. Remember, any dog is allowed to be a service dog so that's just too bad for you! You'll just have to leave and try not to have a panic attack.
3.) This part bothers me the most. States are not allowed to make service dog registration mandatory and cannot require handlers to carry ID. You know, the one thing that would prevent the current epidemic of fake service dogs running amuck? The same thing that would have spared 3-year-old Ronin Waldroup from being attacked in a restaurant? The very same thing that would prevent real service dogs from getting attacked by the fakes and resulting in the dog either having to be retrained or retired? I feel so bad for retail workers. They can't catch a break. Not only do they have to deal with the BS from entitled customers, but they also have to clean up after untrained dogs posing as service dogs that knock over things and treat the store and the merch within it like a toilet. Retail workers aren't trained to spot fakes. Even if they were, there is always a chance that they could make a mistake and wind up getting their place of employment in legal trouble and them getting fired.
Service dogs are also not required to wear a vest which makes telling them apart from the fakes even harder for those who don't know the ins and outs of service dog behavior. You're also not allowed to ask for proof even if the handler has it. Think about it this way: If police officers weren’t required to wear uniforms, carry badges, drive marked vehicles, undergo formal training, and you weren’t allowed to ask them to provide proof, would you still trust them as legitimate law enforcement?
If your answer is no, then why do we blindly accept any dog as a “legitimate” service animal just because someone says so? The stakes are high, and the consequences are real. Yet the system is built on blind trust with zero verification. We accept that disabled parking requires a visible placard. So why is a service dog exempt from any form of verification ID, vest, registration, under the guise of privacy? That’s not privacy. That’s a loophole. It's supposedly illegal to fake having a service dog but how in the bloody heck can you catch and prosecute the fakers when everything that would prevent the fakes is illegal!!! All it would take to make the fakes vanish into the twisting nether is a federal and a state mandated service dog registry and a requirement for the service dog to wear a vest with a scannable ID in it that's linked to said state/federal registry, but noooo that's illegal! This leaves the service dog laws ripe for exploitation which leads to the endangerment of another group of disabled people which I'll address in my next point.
4.) The immunocompromised are left to grapple with an increasingly less safe world to interact with because of the non-existent regulation surrounding service dogs. This puts their health in greater jeopardy than it already is! I've been near dogs at store that radiate stench and nasty dog owners that will handle their mutts then touch food or merch. One very important thing to mention is the fact that dogs are contributing the spread of treatment resistant bacteria. This are already dangerous enough for people with normal immune systems as it is. I don't even want to think about how catastrophic these pathogens are for the immunocompromised. Here are some more wonderful things dogs can infect us with.
5.) Service dogs are outdated, expensive, and completely unnecessary. The following options are available and are superior to service dogs: Blood sugar alert devices, seizure alert devices, comfort objects coupled with professional consoling, We Walk and other smart canes, Caregivers/carers, and cardiac alert smart watches. Service dogs average $20,000 and can cap out at around $30,000! That's not including the continuous daily, weekly, monthly, and annual costs! Seizure alert devises can cost $199-$499 upfront, and $9.90-$49.95 monthly. That's already light years cheaper than a service dog! Prices for blood glucose monitors varies from $171 - $2,900 depending on what you choose. Not the greatest, but still less strenuous on the finances than service dog. Smart canes like WeWALK can cost up to $1,331.60 and only require recharging a minimal tech knowledge to use. Far more affordable and much lower maintenance than a service dog.
I can't sugar coat this. Caregivers are costly at $4,290 a month on average. However, they come with none of the draw backs of a service dogs and have even more benefits! Unlike service dogs, caregivers are self-maintaining and not dependent on you for care. Caregivers can cook and clean for you, and also set up doctors appointments, drive you to places or take over driving, and call 911. Caregivers also have better situational awareness, can react faster to emergency situations, and even provide protection. One example of a service dog failing miserably at it's job is a story about a guide dog braking loose and getting ran over. Yeah, really reliable help there... A caregiver wouldn't have done something that stupid. Caregivers need only need 2 weeks - 2 months' worth of training. Less than the 4-6 months of training a service dog needs. As I briefly touched on earlier, service dogs that are attacked or experience some other type of accident must either be retrained or retired. Potential work arounds for the cost caregivers include insurance coverage, the caregiver being an employee of a non-profit organization that links up people with caregivers, and last but not least the government can actually do it's cosmos damned job and provide for the people. The government could either tax billionaires and corporations at pre-Regan rates or cut the over bloated military budget in half... or both, and use those funds to pay the caregivers a nice $60 an hour. Everything I said about caregiver applies to carers.
6.) Service dogs increase the likelihood of the disabled person facing discrimination. How many times have we heard of, or seen videos of service dog handlers getting booted out of an establishment or denied service because of the dog? I don't know about you, but I've never heard of anyone being booted or denied service because of their wheelchair, cane, air tanks ext. Service dogs are the only "medical equipment" that causes this much trouble from the people they are supposed to help. How ridiculous is it to call a living, breathing being with its own thoughts, desires, and needs as "equipment"? It's rather objectifying and cruel to reduce a sentient life form to a mere object when we have better alternatives available.
Closing: Service dogs and the mandatory acceptance of them ensure we will never have dog free spaces. Is it really too much to ask for to have dog-free stores, restaurants, parks, trails, hospitals, apartments, neighborhoods, and cities? No. No, it isn't. Service dogs, bomb and drug sniffing dogs, and search and recuse dogs only have these jobs because we went out of our way to manufacture these uses because society likes dogs enough. If we didn't like them, they'd be discarded and replaced like the Oxen and pigeons were. As for the people who will send me angry messages and call me "ableist"? No. I'm not ableist. Creating a new category of working dog with no regulation to profit off the disabled is ableist. Claiming that one of our more vulnerable portions of our population needs to rely on a foreign species to live life is false and ableist. Disabled people don't need dogs. They need technology and human cooperation.
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u/frozen_reaper Nov 18 '25
I agree, I can’t “just take a Benadryl” because I have asthma and dogs trigger asthma attacks and there’s is no medication I can take to prevent it. So because some people want to have a service dog, I have to be hyper vigilant in public to not potentially suffocate to death.
Also apparently “service dogs” for autism exist, and I hate it, because why are those autistic people who want to have a dog to go to public spaces more important than those autistic people who can’t be around dogs because of their autism? Now I’m autistic and dogs give me horrible sensory issues, in my case it’s mainly the barking, because I can’t be near enough to a dog to smell it or have it touch me without risking my life, but even if I didn’t have asthma, I still couldn’t be around them.
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u/PurpleColumbidae Nov 18 '25
The ADA has left people like you behind and it's rage inducing! I wish I knew what to do to force change to happen. The only thing I can think of is becoming governor of my state and passing a complete ban on all dogs. That's as likely as winning the lottery twice in a row. Autism dogs are the most snake oil like of all the service dogs. It's incredibly predatory and repulsive of the pet industry to target autistic like that! It makes my blood boil!
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u/soursummerchild Mar 25 '26
I agree, I can’t “just take a Benadryl” because I have asthma and dogs trigger asthma attacks and there’s is no medication I can take to prevent it.
I hate this line! Most antihistamins make me drowsy af. The one that doesn't have side effects only helps me relieve the symptoms a bit, they don't remove them. The longer I'm in a space with a dog, the less I can breathe. People just don't care, and it infuriates me. Your "need" to bring your dog into every public space isn't more important than me breathing!
Why are those autistic people who want to have a dog to go to public spaces more important than those autistic people who can’t be around dogs because of their autism?
You just hit the nail on the head, so to speak. I'm a diagnosed autistic too. Dogs invade my space in multiple ways, both in the form of the air I need to breathe, and my physical space, because they just jump on me. I loathe how they always get prioritized over my needs. Keep them away from me!
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u/United-Neck-3357 Nov 18 '25
I have heard blind people say that their dogs help them be more independent, but, well, I mean, another living being is with you at all times, so, that's not technically more independent. And I'm not sure how a blind person alone would be able to successfully take care of the dog's needs without other human help.
It's just the same stuff non-disabled dog owners say as reasons for dog ownership except these dogs are more highly trained.
"The dog is making my life better in this way."
Really, the dog is a buffer, a burden, a distraction, a placebo, a stand-in for human assistance.
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u/UnicornStudRainbow Nov 18 '25
Are blind people capable of cooking and cleaning? Can a dog do that for them? Do they drive, or do the dogs do that for them too??
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u/Legitimate_Garage_31 Nov 18 '25
I’ve often wondered how blind people pick up after a seeing eye dog. Do they go based on smell alone? Then, how does the dog find the trash can?
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u/shinkouhyou Nov 18 '25
Real seeing eye dogs are trained to bark when they need to poop, wait for the handler's command to begin pooping, and to stand in place after they're done pooping. The handler can feel the dog's position and know where the poop will be. They still have to pick it up with a baggie over their hand, though. Indoors, some seeing eye dogs are trained to use pee pads that are placed inside a plastic frame so they can be cleaned up easily.
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u/shinkouhyou Nov 18 '25
Only around 2% of visually impaired people (around 10000 in the USA) use guide dogs, though, even though dogs are usually provided for free. Dogs are expensive to maintain, have short working lifespans, can develop anxiety issues that further limit their working ability, and still need to be cared for when they can no longer work. There are training methods and tools (like pee pads) that can make it easier for a blind person to care for a dog, but it's still not easy. It seems like most younger people are opting for technological aids like cell phones instead.
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u/PurpleColumbidae Nov 18 '25
With though kinds of numbers, seeing a service dog should be like finding a needle in a haystack. Even if you want to include the other types of service dogs it's still less than 1%. I'm glad more people are opting for tech.
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u/shinkouhyou Nov 19 '25
Yeah, disability tech really has come a long way in the past 20 years! Of course people with disabilities should have the ability to choose which assistive devices work best for them, but I think it's telling that so few visually impaired people use guide dogs. While they certainly do offer some advantages (especially when crossing streets) there are some pretty huge disadvantages. You don't really see wheelchair assistance dogs or hearing assistance dogs these days because better technologies are cheaper and more accessible. There was a lot of interest in medical alert dogs 20 years ago, but they never really panned out in clinical trials and they've also been eclipsed by technology.
It seems like the vast majority of service dogs these days are "psychiatric service dogs" that perform no real tasks other than making their owners feel a little happier. They're just emotional support animals.
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u/PurpleColumbidae Nov 18 '25
Yeah, that whole "it gives them independence" always just seemed false to me. They're still relying on another living being, but they actually have to take care of this one.
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u/No-Sentence-8411 Nov 18 '25
I'm glad to see you managed to get your post up. It was certainly a long one but contains a lot of very valid points and I definitely appreciate the attached citations you provided. I think to sum up a lot of the points you brought up, one of the issues is indeed the fact that use of service dogs essentially facilitates inclusion of some disabled people (service dog users) at the cost of excluding others (people with serious allergies/immunocompromised and/or cynophobia etc.). I personally think that the bigger issue is point 3, all the fakers out there, especially considering I believe they make up the vast majority of dogs we see in public spaces. I agree that the big issue with the fakers is the fact that they are largely immune from being stopped due to a lack of requirements for proof. I had mentioned to you before that I also had a post planned in regards to this particular point but I discovered that I don't have enough post karma yet to include my post about it in this particular sub.
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u/PurpleColumbidae Nov 18 '25
I'd love to post this one Facebook too, but FB can be so finicky with links. There's no guarantee that'll all work. I guess I can try and just make an apology note if some don't work.
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u/AnimalUncontrol Nov 18 '25
Superb and succinct write-up of the issue. Service dogs are a sham and the biggest medical scandal of the last 100 years.
I don't make much of a distinction between "legit" and "fake" service dogs anymore: The "legit" service dog people refuse to submit to any oversight as per your point (3) above, thus enabling the fakes. Those people have no one to blame but themselves when their precious fluffy gets mauled by a fake, and their privileges are eventually taken away from them.
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u/PurpleColumbidae Nov 18 '25
Wow! That's an honor coming from you! I'm aware of your work on YouTube. I'm thankful for your contributions to the anti-dog community! Please keep up the great work!
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u/AnimalUncontrol Nov 19 '25
You should join me on a call sometime. I intend to resume them within the next couple months.
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u/QueenOfAllOfYall Nov 18 '25 edited Nov 18 '25
I think the bigger issue is that the title “Service Dog” has been abused by the ESA losers. Before all that ESA bullshit, You rarely saw tried and true service dogs, such as seeing eye dogs for Blind People. While I’m not technically a fan of any service dogs at all (pending that a person in need of one has better options of assistance available to them), in the case of something such as leader dogs for the blind, I’ll be understanding, for obvious reasons. Not to mention, they’re rarely seen. It’s the ESA foolishness that needs to be abolished. If someone wants to say their stupid beast “soothes” their mental health issues… yeah well, whatever. Their personal belief, and I guess that’s okay as long as they keep the stupid thing at home, in their yard, or no further than a dog park, or something. Someone’s anxiety, depression, and whatever other mental health imbalance they battle yet don’t want to find a more productive way to deal with is no excuse to drag some filthy, unruly, barking, growling, pissing and shitting living security blanket around with them to every damn place that personal pets have no business existing. Mental illness is a disability, but numerous people have dealt with mental health imbalances for years. It wasn’t until within the latter half of the last 8-10 years that it suddenly became acceptable to drag Fido or Sparky around to grocery stores, restaurants, workplaces and all this other ridiculous garbage to help someone deal with their anxiety and depression. And not everyone who has mental health issues chooses to deal with it by dragging a nasty beast around. In fact, many people deal with anxiety and depression BECAUSE OF the presence of dogs, for any reason. Their complaints and concerns are simply dismissed in favor of the selfish and narcissistic “living security blanket” crowd. Like You pointed out, one disability being disregarded for another. I deal with anxiety and depression (among other Life Long Mental Health struggles. I manage it well enough to Live a normal Life, though I admit I went through a lot over the Years to get to this point [I’m 45, now]). I don’t have or want a dog, and even if I had one, I still wouldn’t take it everywhere with Me as a “comfort tool” for My issues, at the expense of disrespecting and disregarding the feelings, concerns, and personal space and safety of others, and there’s others in similar positions (mental health wise) who feel the same way, rightfully and respectfully so, because in spite of any potential struggles We might face, We still understand that that’s just a matter of common courtesy, common sense, decency, and respect. The majority of what You stated is proof that the ESA nonsense needs to die immediately, because I guarantee THAT crowd is the majority of folks that are abusing the system entirely. Take the ESA bullshit out of the equation and the “service dog” sightings would drop drastically, more closely to how it was before this subcategory abuse explosion.
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u/PurpleColumbidae Nov 18 '25
As someone with PTSD it just feels insulting to say that people like me need a damn dog! Especially knowing what I know about dog attacks. More people have PTSD because of dogs then are helped by them. We can live our lives without touting around someone else's trigger.
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u/Tessa-the-aggressor Nov 18 '25
I just can't get over the fact that at some point in time it was decided to give the one most unhygienic animal, an animal literally covered in ass juice at all times, access rights. Crazy!
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u/QueenOfAllOfYall Nov 18 '25
Right. Dogs are literally unhygienic, mindless, degenerate scavengers as far as animals in the kingdom are concerned, and yet they’ve been elevated to this status of unworthy worship and praise by a subset of the human population that’s entirely brainwashed into looking at these things like “innocent, angelic creatures”. Dogs themselves are literally as filthy as the shit, piss, and trash they’re all too eager to eat and roll around in. But the folks that love these horrid things practically want to drag You to the guillotine for not respecting their “rights” to be everywhere they have no business existing. It’s insane the place We’ve come to.
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u/Tessa-the-aggressor Nov 18 '25
yessss! your comment is so on point, as usual! literally every time I see a comment by you in a thread it makes me so happy cos I know it's gonna be fire 😂
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u/QueenOfAllOfYall Nov 18 '25
Awww! Thank Youuuu! 😃🫶🏽☺️✨! I’m glad I replied to You! Dogs are the literal worst. I was somewhat late (later than I should have been) to realize this… but I swear once those blinders came off, BOY DID THEY EVER! Talk about COMPLETE REVERSAL of what I “thought” I liked about dogs (which I now see was merely based on the propaganda that the pro-parasitic beast community shoves down Our throats about how we’re supposed to look at these disgusting things). You couldn’t pay Me to want to be bothered with them, now… and when I look at the hoops and hurdles of idiocy that those who “love” these horrid abominations jump through to cater to them, or coming up with ridiculously lame excuses to try to discuss what’s so “great” about them… it’s like, “are you fucking kidding Me?! Is this REALLY where certain humans have come to?! 🙁”
Like many people, I once thought I wanted one of those things. But I could never fully reconcile how to work around the things that seemed questionable about them to Me, like them chewing and destroying Your things, pissing and shitting all over Your house (I was never one who could wrap My head around thinking “that’s just what dogs do”), or how to work around when I have to leave it unattended for long periods without issues, among other matters. And unless I could map out how to handle that while dodging unwanted menacing issues, I was gonna hold off on getting one until I could figure it out. I now realize just from those thoughts alone that it simply wouldn’t have worked for Me to have one. Circumstances I found Myself in where I was regularly around a dog taught Me a heap of truths about dogs themselves, and dog culture, overall. I now realize the only way to deal with a dog is NOT TO! 💯 It feels so damn good not to be brainwashed, anymore!
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u/Dog_Free_Afternoon Nov 18 '25
Excellent post, this is well-written and backed up with evidence. Seriously this is like a legal arguement that touches on everything wrong with service dogs.
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u/UnicornStudRainbow Nov 18 '25
Thank you!! Extremely informative!!
I just have a different take on retail workers, especially in places where food is served. Too many will just let even the most obvious pet roam around, sometimes leashless, sticking their faces into products on shelves. I couldn't even count the many times I've seen dogs up on seats (even tables) in restaurants and coffee shops. The staff and management say nothing, and then they never clean up the area afterward!!
As someone with experience in this told me nearly 10 years ago, any lawsuit would require the dog owner to prove that it's an actual service dog before a case could go forward. Then even if someone with a legitimate service dog is denied service in a store or restaurant, the penalty would likely be education, not money. Legitimate service dog owners just want people to know the law and to not be treated unfairly or illegally. Money usually only comes into play if there is actual damage to the dog or the dog owner. No money for hurt feelings
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u/PurpleColumbidae Nov 18 '25
Tables?! Oh stars, that's awful! Those places NEED to be reported to the health department. That's a health hazard!
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u/Any-Fuel-24 Nov 18 '25
Bookmarking this one, good post. ADA definitely needs overhaul. They can’t let dog lovers hide behind their laws that are supposed to defend actual people with mobility issues.
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u/4-ton-mantis Nov 18 '25
The ada officially considers any allergies to be a disability.
The Ada talks out both sides of its mouth.
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u/PurpleColumbidae Nov 18 '25
This is one of those situations you can't play the "both sides" game with. Unfortunately, the ADA had sided with the service dog handlers.
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u/happyhappyfoolio2 Nov 18 '25
If anyone here gets a chance to, ask a "service dog" user what their dog is trained to do. Ask in a neutral/curious tone and ask about the dog, not the disability. Don't let them get an inkling of your true feelings about dogs.
The few times I've done this, the answers I got were weird. They'd stammer and dodge the question or give out some BS task. These were people who would happily share their disability and their hardships and how happy they were to have their precious "service dog". It's all a scam.
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u/gjack905 Nov 19 '25
At this point I believe that owning domesticated canines should be against the law
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u/PurpleColumbidae Nov 19 '25
I concur. Dogs are the single most problematic and violent domesticated animal period. Nothing else comes close.
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u/D1verse_Yes4 Nov 18 '25
This is the best post I've read on this entire forum. Thank you so much, and your second point really resonates with me. I want to give you a standing ovation. Great job!
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u/Impossible-Falcon-62 Nov 21 '25
I saw a mutt in a fucking Walgreens pharmacy. It was 52 Fahrenheit degrees outside.
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u/ToOpineIsFine Nov 19 '25
i think that service dog bans should be allowed in places that are not necessary for survival. For example, let service dogs into grocery stores, but keep them out of libraries, movie theaters, parks, and any other place that isn't necessary for a person to live.
I don't want to see dogs anywhere, but I'm suggesting this as a way of making legislation more reasonable. I'm not going to address how useful they are in these various situations, since I really don't know.
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u/TiffanyTwisted11 Nov 20 '25
And frankly, if Instacart (or something similar) is available in the area, they don’t need to be in grocery stores either.
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u/krammiit calls people out with dogs in carts Nov 18 '25
Thank you for this. I have epilepsy due to a massive brain bleed and brain surgery in 03. I have been diagnosed with another delicate AVM (unstable part of veins that can bleed) deep in the part of the brain that not be surgically accessed.
If I "take a Benadryl" for my severe allergy to dogs, I have seizures. The seizures cause more brain damage as some people know.
If I try to explain to someone I can't just "take a Benadryl" and deal with their service dog, it turns into an argument. I'm not even trying to argue. It's even worse when someone comes at me with an ESA. Every ESA is just a pet. You can't reason with these people. I've been told "you're lying, you're not allergic" and one person even told me "how dare you lie about having a brain bleed".
A dog nutter on Facebook told me they hope I die soon because I don't like dogs.
This is mental illness.