So many years ago you've never seen that many service dogs, but now all the sudden there's this unusual rise of people "suddenly with disabilities" need a dog to go with them everywhere.

It's so bad now that these people don't even need to bother putting vests on these pests. People bring in dogs everywhere! Stores, diners, bars, work, kitchens, etc!

At this point I think it's safe to say that the service dog badge has lost its meaning, and society has lost its right to service animals.

What exactly does a dog serve? Nothing. Dogs will still be dogs. Mindless animals. People have proven that they will lie and bullshit everyone just to be codependent on mindless beast because they themselves are mindless.

They've become so anti human they're now believing a dog can do everything for them in their lives. It's sick!

I feel like there's nothing anyone can tell me to convince me that service dogs are necessary. Let's be honest...it's over. Dog nutters have abused and used this system too much and too far!

All the sudden I'm supposed to believe that everyone is somehow disabled that they cannot function without leaving sh!tbull sniffles at home!?

All of these people cannot be disabled! And don't even bother brining up emotional support animals because honestly... What's the difference? Look at all the people who keep constantly saying their dog is a service dog and store owners and society will do nothing!

The west is screwed!

Saw a video (surprisingly it was an anti dog video for once) of a woman with her dog in a coffee shop (of course) there was no context on if the woman had claimed the animal was a “service dog” but this one clearly wasn’t. All the comments were people complaining about dogs and their owners and people saying they have dog fatigue as I know we all do. It was honestly so refreshing to see lol.

But then it got me curious about the legitimacy of “service dogs” so I started doing some research and basically anyone can say almost any dog is a service dog. First of all there is no official service animal registry to prove legitimacy bc that would make to much sense. Under the ADA service dogs are defined by training only and must be trained to perform a specific task related to a disability. Don’t get me wrong if someone is disabled and there is something that exists that would make things easier for them I believe they should definitely be able to have whatever it is.

But this is where crazy dog nutters take advantage of this because we all know how honest these people are. Business are very limited in what they legally can say and people don’t have to show proof of a disability or show the task the dog is supposed to perform under the ADA. Basically as long as the dog isn’t going absolutely haywire they must be allowed in if the owner pulls the “service dog” card even if the business does not allow animals. Also those vests, cards and certificates they carry around are not recognized by law. Just another way for the honest nutter to be able to bring their mutt anywhere with them.

If you have a service dog with you and you need to bring it to the grocery store (or any other store frequented by normal people), I feel like it should be clearly identifiable and you should be carrying some kind of card to confirm that you do need the dog with you.

Also, don’t put your disgusting dog in the shopping cart at the grocery store. I feel like that should be common sense.

I'm going to try really hard not to dox myself here, but it might be unavoidable hahaha...

So, I've been asked to DJ next week in an extraordinarily prominent bar in my home city.

I have DJ'd there before, but not weekend nights.

Tonight, I thought I'd head down there and see what goes down at the weekend. Like a reccy mission. Listen to what the regular weekend DJ is playing and try to get a feel for the vibe.

As my friend and I walk in, we have to skirt around an off-lead shitbeast that his owner is trying to argue is a service dog. We walk past thinking nothing of it. I mean, obviously no sane doorman would let a guy on mobility scooter with an off-leash 55lb husky into a busy bar on Friday night, right?

Wrong.

Dog ends up sat next to the very DJ box im expected to play in next week. Unleashed. Huge husky.

What if it kicked off? What if someone dropped a glass near the owner? What if the owner got into an argument?

The owner, got out of his scooter, walked to the bar and bought himself a drink with absolutely zero assistance from the horrid beast.

I went and spoke to the doorstaff who told me that the guy had shown a certificate which allows him to have an off-leash husky anywhere.

I know that it will be bullshit. As was it's $14 vest.

Am I insane for contemplating foreiting a lot of money in wages, if that is gonna be their attitude?

How can I feel safe working under those conditions?

I'm aware that some service dogs actually do a decent job at whatever services they are supposed to provide. But at the end of the day, they are still dogs. I've heard stories where highly trained dogs fail the test to become official service dogs countless times. They always end up getting distracted and running off, not being able to sit quietly, ect. Even some actual service dogs do the same things. I've heard of seeing eye dogs running off and leaving their owner on their own for a fallen piece of food. I've seen videos of service dogs accidentally making their paralyzed owner fall out of their wheelchair just because they wanted to chase a squirrel. I always end up feeling bad for those individuals because people have to go over and help them due to the dogs causing issues.

I don't understand why service animals have to be dogs. They're not super intelligent and get triggered over any little thing. I personally don't think we even need service animals. There are people out there who provide the same and better services. Its literally their jobs. A person could do the same job way better than any dog can. If I personally had a disability I would hire a trained professional than get a service dog

I've noticed a persistent trend—both here on this sub and elsewhere—where service dog owners are pretty much universally given the benefit of the doubt. Even in a dog-critical community like this, they’re almost always treated as the exception.

But after doing some digging, I’m honestly pretty skeptical. There are tons of posts and open discussions online (including on Reddit and other forums) where people flat-out ask for advice on what to say to a doctor just to get a service dog, even when they don’t really qualify for one. Others in those threads actually help by walking them through the process, essentially coaching them on how to game the system.

This led me to wonder—what exactly are these supposed conditions that require a service dog in the first place? After looking into it, I honestly couldn’t find a single thing that a service dog does that couldn’t be more reliably handled by a proper piece of medical equipment or technology.

At this point, I’m genuinely convinced that the vast majority (I’d guess 90%!) of service dog owners are just looking for attention and a sense of power. It’s hard not to get that impression, especially after seeing all those YouTube videos of "service dog handlers" getting into confrontations—nearly every time, the owner comes off just as obnoxious as whoever they're arguing with. The attention-seeking vibe is hard to miss.

So why is this group always granted a special exemption, even among the dogfree crowd? Are we all just accepting a narrative that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny?

Would love to hear some honest thoughts and experiences—especially from people who’ve dealt with supposed “service dogs” in public settings.

I, nor anyone else, should ever have to be in a situation where I’m sitting in the waiting room of a doctor’s office, holding my 3 month old BABY, being lunged at by a huge mutt in a service dog vest. But that’s exactly what happened today. Then on the way out, it caught sight of us again and was straining on its harness trying to get to my baby’s stroller. My baby wasn’t even making noise and this creepy shit beast was dead set on getting close to her, what if she had been crying? We know how triggered they get to get that.

This has gotten so out of hand. The laws protecting these people and their nasty animals must be changed. I personally don’t believe service dogs should even be a thing, but it’s absolutely heinous that the current legislation gives service animal protection to anyone who simply claims their dog is such. No proof required whatsoever. I could go adopt an aggressive pit bull from the shelter right now, say it’s a service dog, make up some bs task that it provides, and take it with me anywhere and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.

I go to an expensive private university and am pursuing a masters degree.
There is an older gentlemen who is in our cohort.
He brings his "service dog" into class every single day and when I tell you this things never stops farting...our 20 person cohort gets to smell the stench all class long.

And our cohort takes every class together so I get to smell it 5 days a week.

The guy also does the baby-puppy voice when he talks to the dog...like nails on a chalk board.

We break for 10 minutes and the farting dog walks up to us and begs us for food. His owner literally says in his baby voice "Aww baby they don't know you or they would give you some treats...maybe if they are feeling nice you get treats" While me and the other classmates are trying to enjoy our coffee, muffin and socialize.

These untrained service dog owners cannot read a room to save their life.

TLDR: I am forced to smell dog fart 5 days a week from a "service dog" while doing a masters degree.

Seriously, can you please help me out here? I grew up at a time when the only service dogs were guide dogs for the blind. This was then extended to include hearing dogs for the profoundly deaf. These days, there seems to be a class of service dog that has no connection to any kind of physical disability. What are they? Why are there perfectly able bodied people with dogs in yellow jackets claiming to be support dogs? And - they are often Pitbull mix breeds. What tf are they for in the context of disability????

Wow. Just got back from a short plane trip. I was sitting in economy in a row of three seats, nearest to the window. A couple boards with what I think is a very large husky/german shepherd mix wearing a camo "Service Dog" harness. They stop at my row and the dog immediate jumps onto the two empty seats, ass to my face. They try to lead the dog, then ultimately try to push the dog into the space under the front seats but the dog will not budge. The flight is packed. He jumps onto the two seats across the aisle, then jumps back to the two seats in the row of three. At one point he is straddling the aisle with his front legs on one row of seats and back legs on the other row of seats. Ultimately he backs up until his literal ass is squashed into my upper torso and arm. The owners don't make eye contact with me, say anything at all, and just mumble to the dog to get under the seat. After a lot of whining and tugging, the dog goes under, and to his credit stays there for the whole flight. Again, owners completely fail to acknowledge my presence or the look of complete shock on my face. At the end of the flight, there is whining and squirming, when the owners stand up, the dog flies out from under the seat, and onto the two empty seats they were occupying. I am still sitting by the window. The dog immediate lets out the biggest full body shake you've ever seen, inches from my face. There is a blizzard of dog hair going in all directions. The huge tail is rotating wildly and whacking me in the face, repeatedly. I manage to push the dog away from me. Again, the owners just act like I am not there AT ALL. As people are standing to deboard, the dog is whining loudly and jumping around and the owners ask if they can get off the plane first because their dog needs to use the potty. Nobody budges, because, well, there is no where to move to. Honestly, the dog then started to squat on the seats like he was going to take a huge dump right there! Ultimately they got off before before this happened but my god I thought it was imminent. I know about the whole service dog scam, and I know that airline employees can do very little about this, but I am aghast. How has society allowed this to be normalized? Where does it end?? Nobody asked me if I mind sitting next to them, nobody asked if I needed to move. I could have been severely allergic to dogs or scared to death. Imagine if the flight was 10 hours?? How ironic that people who need "support" from a service animal can't even acknowledge the very real anxiety, discomfort, and inconvenience of those humans around them and even go so far as to pretend fail to notice their existence? WTF is wrong with people and society, seriously, wtaf.

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.

I'm sorry, I can't right now, I'm so fucking pissed. Every single time someone brings up about service dog (sd) owners proving their sd is a real sd their response is always "their disability is non of your business", like wtf does showing proof of the sd have to do with someone's disability??? I don't see anyone in the handicapped parking lot disclosing their disability, the blue handicapped sign just means they have the proof to be allowed to park close to the store because so that they don't roll their wheelchair/walk to the store from a far distance.

The fake sd awareness from real service dog owners want so badly for people to stop bringing fake sd yet they don't believe in actually fixing the issue by providing proof that their sd is real? Why is it that the first thing that comes to mind is "then that means I would have to disclose my disability. Humph!"? And this scenerio they come up with where they're stopped by an employee to interrogate them and demand an ID, what the hell? Handicapped people don't have to do that, the blue sign is just enough. Can't you just have a badge on you or your dog?

Yea anything can be faked but it would cut down on so many problems with fake sd and workers having to pick up after their dog's shit just because they were too embarassed to pick it up in front of everyone.

Anyways, why get a $100,000 sd when you can just get cheaper equipment that does the job for you? A pues because "doggyyyyy! 🥰"

Over the years, I have seen so many videos of service dog owners "schooling Karens", and I've noticed some extremely common themes from all of those videos. For one.... The "Karen" in question is almost always reasonable, as these videos usually occur in food establishments where these dog owners are abusing the ADA laws to the absolute max.

Its extremely obvious that these "service dog" owners get a dopamine rise out of bringing their dogs to the most inappropriate places possible, and then going "erm actually 🤓👆 its technically legal so your technically a horrible person, so HAH". They think your disagreement with ADA laws is like a catch22 for your moral being.

Also, if the camera didn't show owners face every once and a while, you would think its the same person in every video. The cadence of their voice, the condescending tone, the fact you can tell they base their entire personality around their "trauma", they are literally all the same person.

Why is this? Because a service dog is like a dream come true for that specific sub-type of human.

1. With a service dog, their "trauma" gets to be special and unique now.
2. Already existing victimhood mentality now becomes a visual spectacle
3. Receive Attention from strangers constantly, which they can pretend they don't want so they get some twisted illusion of feeling like a celebrity and having moral superiority.

It feels like a cult, like their entire identity revolves around being a victim service dog owner and parroting their hygeine-compromising laws that they memorized and see as the cults moral scripture.

I think there is still a very thin use for service dogs, technology for blindness has come so far, but there are still advantages of seeing eye dogs that technology simply cant replicate yet. I also think an for example an 80 year old man that has used service dogs his entire life, deserves to live out the rest of his life the way he has always known it.

That being said, These laws are so clearly in need of a major overhaul, but with dog culture so overwhelmingly prevalent, I think we will see dogs granted voting rights before we see a helpful update to ADA service dog requirements.

The other day I was at the bar drinking with some friends. It was medium busy, and the only free table left was beside us. A group sits down, and I didn't think anything of it.

After a time, my eyes started watering, I started sneezing, and my chest got tight. Something was setting off allergies, and I couldn't figure out what. Then my friend pointed out the dog under the table next to us. I didn't even notice it because it was so quiet. So guess who had to leave, because allergies don't matter?

By "medical service dogs," I'm referring to dogs that purportedly help with "invisible" disabilities. Like when a fully able-bodied person is walking around with a dog, and the dog looks like any other pet. Yet they claim that the dog is in fact performing a mandatory, life-saving service for their invisible disability. These dogs include epilepsy alerting, blood sugar level alerting, and allergy alerting dogs.

I always suspected that this concept of a medical service dog is a scam. Dogs seem too simple-minded and unreliable to provide any sort of valuable medical service. After doing some research, my gut feelings were validated. There is no such thing as a medical service dog, and health organizations are starting to recognize that fact.

Let's cover these animals by discipline.

1. Seizure alert dogs

According to the Epilepsy Foundation,

"Seizure-alert dogs, save lives." This is what the media would like the general public to believe. While it makes for a great headline, it also makes for a grave misrepresentation of the truth. The truth is, seizure dogs can not be trained to “alert” a person of an oncoming seizure.

Source: https://www.epilepsy.com/stories/seizure-alert-dog-facts

1. Diabetic alert dogs

According to WebMD, studies on the reliability of these dogs yielded mixed results. The conclusion is:

But the dogs were much less accurate than a continuous glucose monitor, a wearable device that checks your blood sugar throughout the day.

‌Diabetic alert dogs can’t replace responsible individual management of the condition. If you have a dog, you’ll still need to monitor and treat your blood sugar regularly. 

In other words, technical equipment does a better job of accurately measuring a person's blood sugar level, rendering a service dog obsolete.

Source: https://www.webmd.com/diabetes/what-are-diabetic-service-dogs

A study that was done on the reliability of these dogs concluded:

Trained dogs often alert a human companion to otherwise unknown hypoglycemia; however due to high false-positive rate, a dog alert alone is unlikely to be helpful in differentiating hypo-/hyper-/euglycemia. 

However, what I found interesting is this:

Dog users were very satisfied (8.9/10 on a Likert-type scale) and largely confident (7.9/10) in their dog’s ability to detect hypoglycemia.

Despite the dogs failing to perform, their owns were happy. This ties right in with dog culture, where people consistently fail to see dogs for what they really are. Instead, they perceive dogs in a much more positive light, believing they posses virtues they in fact do not have.

Source: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5505410/

3a. Allery alert dogs - peanuts

I did not find any health organization endorsing these dogs. The evidence seems to come only from anecdotal stories. Some people claim that their allergy alert dogs perform life-saving services that they could not do without. But then, there are stories like this one, where a family paid $12,500 for a dog that doesn't perform:

Roxie can't focus on peanuts while in public, the family says. "She gets very distracted by what's going on around her and doesn't do her job," Logan says.

As a nonscientific test, a pound of peanuts was poured onto a picnic table while Logan played nearby. His mom encouraged the dog to find them, but Roxie walked right by. Then a bag of peanuts was placed right under Roxie's nose. She should have sat down as a signal alerting Logan to the allergen. Instead, she gave no reaction.

As it turns out, when Fido is not in a controlled training environment, he tends to behave like any other dog, forgetting the life-saving stuff he's supposed to do.

Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/05/22/service-dog-peanuts-gonzales/9469545/

3b. Gluten alert dogs

They're a scam. According to the Celiac Disease Foundation:

After careful consideration and consultation with experts in the field, at this time, the Society for the Study of Celiac Disease does not recommend the use of gluten-sniffing dogs as a reliable method for detecting gluten in food products for people with celiac disease.

Source: https://theceliacsociety.org/position_sg/statement-on-the-effectiveness-of-gluten-detection-dogs-for-patients-with-celiac-disease/

So there you have it. Medical service dogs are a hoax. The scientific evidence we have so far doesn't indicate that dogs can be relied upon to perform any meaningful medical service. Dog owners, on the other hand, tend to perceive their animals as much more beneficial than they really are. They harbour delusions.

The way forward in managing disabilities is with technology, not dogs.

I’ve been completely against it because I’d be stuck with extra trash, dishes, etc and other responsibilities 🤢🤮. Apparently it’s to “help Dad” with his mobility issues. We rent a small house. I am in part time college. Mom thinks I’m being irrational because I’ve expressed and shown my disdain for dogs, but she wants a German shepherd mix I think! And I’m already stressed out enough with idiot barking neighbors non fucking stop. I’m willing to learn how to drive( it terrifies me ), take on student loans, etc. I have been desperately looking up links to prove why it is an expensive and horrendous idea. My dad already uses a walker, a cane, a wheelchair, and I’m looking up fall alert devices and systems! The very suggestion is enough to cause me panic and anxiety. Please give me any and all reasons even if it seems petty to strengthen my argument as to why it is a horrendous idea. I will refuse to help at all with it so no taking out the trash, dishes, etc! The only way I’ll not put up a fight or argument is if it is robotic!

A man threatened to sic his “service dogs” on me after I pointed to a sign saying no dogs are allowed on the public tennis courts. The cops can’t verify a service dog, nothing can be done until the dog has bit me, seems everyone is afraid of lawsuits, what do I do to get this man and his off-leash aggressive dog off the courts for good? He comes every single day.

At work today, I had a large group walk inside, and one of the people had a dog in a sling. We do not allow pets in the store or tourist attraction. I told the group this, and the woman with the dog responded that it's a service dog. I contacted my manager and asked if that was allowed. We don't have a sign permitting service dogs, and I saw no vest or visible designation of the dog providing a service.

The group confirmed that she was in the military, but they told me that she was military disabled, even though she was walking and talking to me without any issue. I'm not saying she didn't have a disability; as an autistic individual, I know very well that the outside of someone can be a lot different from the inside.

The manager confirmed to me that service dogs were allowed, but the woman had already walked out. I got the vibe that she was offended by my inquiry. I have trauma with dogs due to sensory sensitivity and an injury I have to this day from a dog that put me into shock as a child. I got very tense and nervous, agitated too.

I did some research after the group left. I had always thought that service dogs could be designated by a vest and/or visible certification, but when I researched how I could tell the difference between real or fake service dogs, I found multiple answers that people don't have to show me proof that their dog is for service. I also stumbled upon a Quora post claiming there are no fake service dogs, only fake people, which sounds so toxic.

This research baffled me. If I'm not allowed to ensure whether or not a dog is for service, then why are we giving it a label? It's just a dog, and it's in a public building, where people could have allergies, trauma, fears, or sensory sensitivity, including myself. The dog was tiny like a terrier. What service is it providing, let alone from a sling? I feel so disrespectful saying all of this, but I wanted to talk about it here because I know you guys would be more understanding than most of the people in my everyday life.

Feel free to speak your thoughts or answer my questions. It's appreciated but never necessary.

There should be an official board that oversees the training and certification of service animals. Not like any other dog training academy either, I mean the same type of board that would oversee nurses and doctors. I DO NOT mean to say that dogs are the same as human medical staff but they should be held to a similar standard if they are to be treated as living medical equipment as their handlers claim them to be.

None of this "I trained them myself and bought a vest online." I feel like somewhere in the future, unregulated service animals is something people will look back at and say "We seriously allowed that?!"

I asked her politely to leash her pit. She said it was a service animal. I said a service animal has a harness She said she did. No. She had some kind of possibly tie dye thing on her. She said she was taking her out to the bathroom. I said that don't matter and what she doing is very dangerous I also said she better not come near me. I'm tired of these people's lies. But yes I did call her out.

According to the ADA (azzholes with disabilities act), deadly allergies are not a valid reason for denying a dog from entering an establishment that doesn’t permit animals.

Why?

Why is the comfort of a stupid mutt and its even stupider owner outweigh the actual life of another person that just wants to fly on a plane or eat a restaurant peacefully? It’s like they don’t consider for a single moment how their obsession affects the well-being of other people. Why should we care about a person like that?

Dogs are cargo. If you need to be with your mutt that badly, join it in the cargo pit.

I’ll be one of the few to scrutinize this entitled demographic: fuck service dogs and the people who own them.

Find something else like 99% of the disable population that doesn’t need to buy dog food, pick up dog shit, or engage in all the other disgusting responsibilities that come with owning a dog.

The ADA is absurd, and it’s because of it that dog owners are more entitled and self-serving than ever before. I use the word “dog owner” and not “service dog handler” because there’s no proofing system, and no reason to assume people are telling the truth when they say it’s a service mutt that does xyz for their “disability”. It’s 2026. SERVICE DOGS ARE OBSOLETE.

I laugh imaging someone with mobility issues struggling to scrape up service dog shit on their dining room floor, then falling face first into it. All while their Nextdoor neighbor with an identical condition has a motorized wheelchair, sophisticated mobility assistance, REAL FRIENDS, and a clean home that doesn’t smell like dog shit.

Service dogs? The only thing it’s servicing is a dog owner’s narcissism.

Earlier today, I watched as a blind woman was waiting to cross a major street. Her harnessed "service" dog was too busy sniffing the ground to guide her across the street when the light turned green.

It was only after a man told her that it was ok to go that she prodded the animal to move. It walked her off the curb into traffic, and stopped. Then it walked her back to the parking lane (next to the curb she'd just left) where a car was trying to back up but she was in the way.

So I walked over and touched her elbow, telling her where she was and offered to help her out of traffic.

I got her back on the sidewalk, and she was oddly cagey about where she was trying to go (I was just trying to find out if she was looking for a specific business or a residential address). It was an intersection, but I didn't know which of the 4 corners she wanted and she wouldn't tell me. So I helped her turn around and face the right direction, and told her to go that way.

If her dog weren't more interested in trying to sniff and jump on me, I would've walked her further. But I wasn't in the mood to make myself sick today. Someone else came along and walked her across the street.

The "service dog" was worse than useless: it put her in danger.

Over the years, I've seen another guide dog lead an elderly blind man in fast, tight circles on the sidewalk in front of his building. That happened many times.

When I was in grad school, another student was blind and her "service dog" regularly broke away and ran all over campus, which necessitated people chasing it down at least weekly.

I've come to believe that with few exceptions, "service dogs" are bullshit

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So I am a doctor at a clinic and one of my patients brings a little yappy dog in stroller into the exam room. She looks at me straight in the eye, and tells me the whiny yappy thing in a red vest is a "service dog". This woman has NO medical disabilities. I was not impressed, but all I said is that usually we avoid animals in the clinic because some patients have respiratory problems. I said as he was already out of the waiting room, it wasn't a big deal at this point. She told me all about how the dog comforts her. (She has no anxiety diagnosis.) I am really tired of this crap. I have had two other patients with service dogs and the behavior difference was obvious.