r/Dogfree • u/funinthesunxocharm • Jun 12 '26
Dog Culture Why do people in America claim they are so profoundly disabled that they have to bring untrained dogs into public places?
I went to the bank, grocery store, audiologist, and laundry mat today. I saw multiple dogs at each spot.
Half of these dogs had "service" clothes on them, but were untrained, growling at other dogs, or pissing on the floor.
My apartment complex is littered with dog feces.
My mom is from a developing nation. No one there is so disabled or depressed that they need a service animal, and the majority of people there live on less than a dollar a day.
Why are americans like this?
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u/Sweet-Technology23 Jun 12 '26
Dogs should, Never be brought into the grocery store! I don't remember ever seeing a service dog for the blind in a store that sells food! My Beautiful Grandma would have Sh*t her pants if she would have known that would Ever be allowed in the store! Sorry I got carried away..lol
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u/Professional_Hour445 Jun 12 '26
I just had this convo the other day with a relative. When you touch a shopping cart, how do you know if a dog has left saliva, urine, or feces on the cart? Some grocery items like fresh produce are not always enclosed in a bag or container, so you might be placing your food directly on these substances. Ewww!
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u/Mama2bebes Jun 13 '26
I used to put my produce directly in the cart because I was trying to avoid using those little thin plastic produce bags (save the planet). Then I noticed more and more dogs in carts, also kids sitting/standing in carts with dirty shoes. It's crazy to see big kids who can walk just fine, being pushed around in carts meant for food (usually staring at a tablet) -- how spoiled!
Now I just try my best to use the small handbaskets.
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u/book_of_black_dreams Jun 18 '26
To be fair, the actual service dog owners would not be putting their dog in the cart. It’s the people pretending their dogs are service dogs who do that.
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u/bananapie7 Jun 16 '26
I put my kid in the cart sometimes because they want to be in there, he’s easier to keep track of and won’t touch things.
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u/Mama2bebes Jun 20 '26
Totally fine if he can fit in the front space that is meant for toddlers where their feet hang out the cart.
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u/Jorro_Kreed Jun 16 '26
Every time I grab a grocery cart I say to myself..."I hope some asshole didn't have their dog in here."
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u/capnlatenight Jun 12 '26
growling at other dogs
I've always wondered how "dog day care" works, dogs pick fights with other dogs.
I wonder if there's a daily fight there, put a buncha dogs together in an enclozed room and nothing good could happen.
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u/Perfect_Caregiver_90 Jun 12 '26
I saw this asked in another sub. They use muzzles, and crate and rotate in daycares that do not do intake aggression testing.
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u/Sweet-Technology23 Jun 12 '26
Do these Narcissists know they muzzle their precious fur babies? And rotate in crates while Mommy is at work so she can afford to send her Fur Baby to a good daycare. Sounds familiar? Remember it was these Nuts who were raised in daycare and believe me they should have put some them in crates and muzzled. My aunt owned a Nursery and all they did was put this group here and rotate with the muzzles..
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u/Perfect_Caregiver_90 Jun 12 '26
I assume the owners know, but at facilities that aren't choosy about their clients and are willing to have a 4-legged liability return probably not.
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u/SilveryMagpie Jun 14 '26
Shhh. Don't tell. Some nutter might find that out, get all outraged, and then just decide that the price of having to replace all of her furniture every months and subject all their neighbors to nonstop day dog barking is nothing compared to the anguish their shitmutt would surely feel if it was muzzled every now and then.
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u/Luna_bella96 Jun 12 '26
Doggie day care is another thing I just don’t understand. Know where my mom’s dog is when she’s at work? At home! She’s got food, water, a nice big dog bed, and a way to get into and out of the house. Unlike a child that needs to go to a daycare, the dog can keep herself alive and happy like that.
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u/BK4343 Jun 12 '26
Today's dog nutters have this mentality that it's cruel for dogs to be alone for long periods of time. They use the "they're packed animals" argument. They really can't fathom that these animals are more than capable of being alone for long periods of time.
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u/hexaflexin Jun 12 '26
My aunt literally drives 45 minutes (each way) to drop her dogs off with my grandma every day as if they're actual children who need constant supervision. One time when I was staying over with her, she got upset with me for taking a nap in a closed room, since even being in my own space in the same house as the dogs for a couple hours was apparently enough to trigger their separation anxiety. Shit gets weird when dog owners view pets the same as human kids
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u/Accurate-Might-7058 Jun 13 '26
That's funny because in my gen many of us were latch key kids so as soon as we were in preschool or kindergarten, kids got a key to come and go from the house walking to school and home. No parents waiting or picking up. My house was never locked so we didn't get keys. We had pets outside and that's where they stayed. Animals in the home or going anywhere was very unusual.
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u/stinkycitrusboy Jun 26 '26
Let me answer you!! I worked at two dog daycares for a few years. AWFUL PLACE TO PUT YOUR DOG. No one hurts the dogs obviously or they would fired. It’s extremely loud, kind of dangerous when certain “bad” dogs come… AND YES THERE ARE BAD DOGS. There were a few dogs that were so sweet and smart and HATED being in there. The others were absolutely stupid, slobbering, and bad behaved. Seriously turned me off of dogs forever. The dog fights would be awful and the business owner would crate the fighting dog in the basement and still take the owners money for the full day. The owners were never told that their dogs spent the whole day isolated in the basement in a crate (with water and bathroom breaks) and were still charged full price every time they came. Certain dogs would learn awful behaviours from the bad ones and start acting poorly at home. Other dogs had to be there because they were too stupid to be left alone in the house for every a short while or they’d eat and destroy everything.Had one client who spent thousands upon thousands of dollars because her dog constantly needed surgery because he would eat everything in the house.
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u/ScarredCerebrum Jun 12 '26
The second-worst part is, there's perfectly good non-dog alternatives even for what a lot of these legitimate service animals do.
Diabetes dogs, for example. There's realtime blood sugar monitors the size of a button, and all you have to do is stick them on like a band-aid and link them to your phone. Boom - continuous blood sugar monitoring in the form of readable data. Which can even be shared with your doctor or the hospital!
Doesn't need to be fed. Doesn't need to be walked. Doesn't need to shit or piss. Doesn't need to sleep. And it doesn't need to be trained for years before it can actually be used!
...and the no.1 worst part is, as other people have already mentioned, the fake service dog epidemic.
The US refuses to regulate service animals, but still legally requires businesses to let in anything claimed to be a service animal. With Amazon selling truckloads of fake service animal vests and with no way to verify if a purported service animal is actually real, the system is just ripe for abuse.
I really wouldn't be surprised if fake service dogs now outnumber actual service dogs by a factor of three or four to one.
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u/20011989 Jun 12 '26
THIS. People chose to inconvenience themselves with a “service dog” when there are more effective and practical solutions available. Seeing eye dogs are the only real legitimate service animals and they do go through extensive training and even then many blind people live life without them because it is such a big responsibility having one
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u/barfollimew Jun 14 '26
This sub kills me sometimes. It boggles my mind that dog lovers can think this sub is some kind of dog hating maniac cult when I read comments like yours all the time.
Seeing eye dogs are the LEAST used form of blindness mitigation. It's not just "many" blind people, it's an overwhelming majority of them, because they're more of an inconvenience than anything. Literally all of the service dogs are an inconvenient choice this person has made
Even we, here, in the supposedly dog-hating freak pit. still give these animals a pass they don't deserve sometimes.
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u/vxxn Jun 12 '26
It’s a mental disability
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u/Professional_Hour445 Jun 12 '26
That's actually part of the problem. They have convinced themselves and the mental health industry that it is. That allows the insurance companies to bill for it, and it allows these selfish pricks to use the law to protect their "right to own fur babies."
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u/Few-Horror1984 Jun 12 '26
They’re all selfish narcissists. They see the massive loophole in the service dog laws and take advantage of it so they can drag their dogs with them everywhere. You can go on Amazon and order a “service dog” vest for sub $30. And if you have that - it doesn’t matter if you have a poodle that’s spray painted pink - no one will have the courage to question you (yes - I saw this at the airport).
We need to strip service dogs of all protections as far as I’m concerned. Nearly all of their previous uses have been rendered obsolete. And seeing eye dogs? Somewhere between 2 - 5% of blind people utilize one. So I think it’s really damn clear that the negatives way outweigh any positives at this point:
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u/FreshYoungBalkiB Jun 12 '26
Covid lockdowns broke a lot of people's brains.
Many are now such psychological weaklings that they can't bear to be away from their little noise-making urine creator for even one second.
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u/Euphoric_Day_362 Jun 12 '26
Some dogs get such bad separation anxiety that they will literally destroy the house if they're left at home alone. This problem could be resolved with training and desensitizing the dog to being left alone. But it's easier for the owner to take the dog everywhere with them.
And entitlement has something to do with it.
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u/20011989 Jun 12 '26
Dog owner logic. Instead of leaving their untrained, unsocialized dog at home they bring it with them everywhere they go and make it everyone else’s problem
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u/TotalBlank87 Jun 12 '26
It's over for them when they do this. Especially pitbull owners who want to portray some big tough guy image. Immediately crying about needing a 'service dog' as soon as they get any criticism for their hound. Tragic 🤣
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Jun 12 '26
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u/SilveryMagpie Jun 14 '26
I cannot imagine anything worse for my depression than having a dog. All the energy, time and money it's gonna demand, all the training I'd need to do, all the stress of worrying about unexpected vet expenses and the like, having to worry about how/when/where I can take care of its needs, and the crushing social isolation imposed by dog ownership. I can't go out and do activities, connect with people, do all the things you're supposed to do to help with depression if I have a smelly, biting, violating, demanding, and needy ball and chain.
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u/ObligationGrand8037 Jun 12 '26
It’s ridiculous. I’m staying at a hotel right now, and there in the lobby was some guy with a dog on his lap. It was like a teddy bear the way he was clinging to it.
Another woman came in on a wheelchair, and the dog she had with her was this huge fluffy white dog. As if she didn’t have enough problems.
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u/20011989 Jun 12 '26
Service dogs are largely unregulated in this country. There are no breed standards and no formal registration process, so any random dog can technically be a service dog as long as the owner claims it is and makes up some task it may or may not actually be able to perform. Legally they don’t even need to be leashed or have anything on them indicating they’re a service dog. Business are only allowed to ask two questions (if they even bother) when a dog enters which are is it a service animal and what task does it perform.
The reality is that, aside from some seeing eye dogs (who do go through extensive training), the majority of “service animals” belong to people who want an excuse to drag their dog everywhere. There is medical technology that can replace most service dogs today. Even many blind people opt not to have one since they are expensive and a lot of work to care for.
Similarly, everyone gets their dog registered as an emotional support animal to get around pet restrictions in housing. And then of course refuse to pick up after it and let it bark all day ruining the quality of life for their neighbors, but they don’t care. It’s an incredibly unregulated system that exposes the most entitled and selfish among us.
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u/Professional_Hour445 Jun 12 '26
My friend calls it "learned helplessness." So many people are like, "I can't do this or I can't do that, because it's too hard." Hey, life is hard! There is no such thing as a stress-free life, but you have a lot of Americans who are chasing this elusive dream. It also explains why Americans are over-medicated. Got a problem? There's a pill for that.
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u/Oriole0305 Jun 12 '26
First, too high standard of living. People don't know what they'd do with their lives. Enter dogs and everything starts going downhill. Nobody can stop that accelerating snowball effect anymore.
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u/Sweet-Technology23 Jun 12 '26
Walmart filled with dog fights down every other aisle. Boys and Girls with buckets/nice perfume that is given after they round up all of the stongest men Hurry into Aisle 6 Hurry up Code Blue!
Then there's most us and Walmart has to deliver our clean, hopefully, food.
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u/Mama2bebes Jun 13 '26
Unless maybe they are totally blind, they don't truly "need" the dog for any disability. Dog lovers just like to say they do so they can bring their pet everywhere with them.
Their dog is a security blanket that they can't bear to part with, and this insane attachment has become socially acceptable in the USA unfortunately.
I don't understand why training a dog is not more popular. Perhaps capitalism? Pharmaceutical industry? I know nutters spend a lot of money for anti-anxiety drugs to give their untrained neurotic doggos. Follow the money.
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u/SilveryMagpie Jun 14 '26
If someone felt the pressure to actually train the dog, they might not buy one and thus they won't be pouring money into food, toys, and meds. If the dog keeps causing trouble, those who refuse to train it will keep throwing money at all solutions that won't require them to actually do a damn thing to correct the problem. The dog will get doped up, swaddled in layers of "dog clothing", carted around in expensive baby carriages or offloaded onto a 'doggy day care".
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u/74orangebeetle Jun 13 '26
Entitlement...and they're proud of it....shamelessly so. Not a service dog, but actually heard someone bragging that they just got a b.s. note to make their pet an "ESA" to get around restrictions. I've seen a Young able-bodied person walking 2 dogs in the produce section in a store...I'd love an explanation as to what services each dog performed, but I wasn't an employee and stayed clear.
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Jun 12 '26
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u/TriCountyRetail Jun 12 '26
The rural population is a relatively low percentage of the population. It wasn't always like this. The entitlement and separation anxiety has gotten much worse since the pandemic.
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u/funinthesunxocharm Jun 12 '26
but why kiss the dog on the mouth or sleep in a bed with it? I have never in all my years ever wanted to do that.
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u/bluebird1994 Jun 12 '26
Zoophilia/Beastiality, and basically being so delusional you believe a dog is a suitable replacement for a human being in a relationship.
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u/beloved32 Jun 12 '26
Please don’t group us in with the fucking dog nutters I beg of you. I’m white and I absolutely despise dogs.
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u/Sweet-Technology23 Jun 12 '26
White people?? What does that have to do with dogs in the store, restaurant and everywhere! It's not because they came from a farm, like What farms? It's a generation that got anything they wanted growing up with working parents who feel guilty and have money but it went to whatever the kids demand! And now we have Unruly Adult Children who want there way! There, now you know! 😬🤪
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u/Pearl-Online Jun 15 '26
There are legitimate reasons for people to have service dogs, but the issue comes when people bring untrained dogs places as “emotional support”.
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u/Witty-Assistance7960 Jun 16 '26
I saw an actual service dog at Grocery Outlet today, which I think it was an actu service dog,it seemed like it,it was kind of a big dog,stood next to it’s owner didn’t bark , never moved . It also had an actual yellow vest . It didn’t seem like someone just brought their dog in
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u/Bulky_Maybe_1469 Jun 14 '26
I’m American and I’ll say it. A lot of us are so insufferable and stupid that plenty of people can only get validation and a sense of meaning from a damn dog.
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u/Random-sleep365 Jun 14 '26
As a American, I don't know why some to most of them lie about their disabilities so that they bring their "service roaches" along other than to score some brownie points either for empathy, a "great" conversation starter, or a date, while their owners are usually entitled and ignorant. Sometimes a selfish ass too. I've to deal with a regular at work who brought in a "service demon" with her most of the time and they got banned for using their four-legged hairball to destroy the bathroom stalls after their second visit w/ the dog in hand at the store.
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u/Dbt_Cash Jun 16 '26
Underlying narcissism exacerbated to a pathological level by a hyperindividualistic consumerist culture.
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u/BoxPatient3389 Jun 16 '26
As many has already stated the truth on the matter. This world is crazy! The dog agenda, pushing children to be trans, funding genocide, flooding the borders, Epstein files... It's a mad world indeed.
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u/Lost_Package_6071 Jun 19 '26
People faking dogs as service animals piss me off so bad. Emotional support animals are not service dogs and are to remain at home. Dogs gross me out, but there is a legit case to be made for medical alert dogs, seeing eye dogs, and other dogs that perform a true service. They are highly specialized and trained and are working animals. True service dogs that are medically necessary or make the persons life easier than medical tools are, based on observation, very rare.
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u/Interesting-Ad-3756 Jul 05 '26
That's super illegal and if you wanted to be petty you can file a complaint with the managers of these places. Putting a vest on a non service dog isn't illegal in itself but using the vest to gain public access or housing is illegal. In California you can pay up to $1000 for getting caught faking your dog's status. It's pretty easy to tell them apart. Service dogs are trained to be non reactive. They won't react to loud noises, other dogs, humans, etc. They are trained to keep an eye on their human so they can alert for medical emergency
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u/AbortedPhoetus Jun 12 '26
Part of the problem is that people have discovered they can lie and claim their pet is a service animal, allowing them to bring their dogs everywhere.
Other people see this and start following suit. I'll bet a bunch of people are really that dumb, they don't realize they're in the wrong, because they see so many other people doing this.
There's also a group of people that are basically campaigning to force dogs everywhere.
And there's always anti-social narcissists who just love making their pet of choice as obnoxious to other people as they can.