By Fran Jewell
A few years ago, I had a lovely black German shepherd guide dog named Onyx that I trained for a blind woman near Reno. She was back to me to help her stop barking at other dogs. Why did she bark at other dogs? She was attacked by a pit bull in a grocery store and her blind owner couldn’t use her anymore. This isn’t a comment about pit bulls; it’s a tragic tale of how a fake service dog can destroy another fully trained service dog in the flash of a second.
Each dog was standing in two separate grocery store checkout lines when the pit bull lunged at Onyx and pinned her to the ground while her blind owner stood stunned and not knowing how to cope.
If this other dog had been screened carefully, and trained properly, there would have been no issues between it and the dog I was working with. I can say with utmost confidence that this dog was a pet someone put a vest on and pranced around as a service dog so they could take it into the grocery store on a hot Reno day. A fully trained dog with proper service dog temperament would never act in such a manner.
The guide skills Onyx had were remarkable. I took her out of my van for our first training together in four years. I said “left,” and she immediately turned left away from the van and then stopped at the street behind the van. She looked both ways, and then guided me across the street through a double row of parked cars. Then she stopped me at another street, going the opposite direction. She looked both ways and proceeded across that street through more parked cars to the curb where she indicated the curb to step up on so I wouldn’t trip. Her skills were astonishing and accurate. Anyone could walk behind her with their eyes blindfolded.
Onyx guided me through the Ketchum Farmers’ Market, never taking me too close to any table. She didn’t sniff the food, or look for food on the ground, even when I had her stop. She walked around kids, coolers on the ground, people standing while guiding me safely.
Then a sweet little mixed-breed on a leash appeared and Onyx barked and shook uncontrollably. I tried to refocus her, with no luck. Eventually, she calmed down and was able to pass three other dogs without incident, but I was careful not to take her too close to them. She could see them, however.
Another day, we went into PetSmart. At the first dog, Onyx barked and tried to jump on me, desperately asking me for help and to remove her. I didn’t ask her to guide anymore, gave her lots of praise for focusing on me and ignoring the other dogs. We left as quickly as I could. The staff noticed how nervous Onyx was and came to talk to me. I told them what had happened to her and they were so lovely by asking a few of the other dog owners to wait for us to leave the store instead of walking by.
The work to get Onyx through this fear was enormous and, frankly, I was not sure I could change her mind about other dogs while she was in harness working. She got along fine with my dogs when not working.
I wanted to share this story with everyone, especially those that think faking a service dog harms no one. It is devastating to someone whose dog has been through 300 to 400 hours of training and relies on his or her service dog for life-saving independence. For Onyx’s owner, it was a huge financial and emotional loss. Shame on anyone who thinks faking their pet or poorly trained pet dog as a service dog hurts no one.
As an update, Onyx had to be retired and could no longer guide her person. At the time of this update, I have discovered, through several of my friends who travel regularly on planes around the world, that there are many “service dogs” on planes, even some that have gotten into fights.
Furthermore, I heard that a professional trainer was going to deliver a dog to a friend of mine and take him on a plane as a “service dog” when he is clearly not being trained to mitigate my friend’s disability. In fact, my friend has no disabilities. Boy, did that rub me the wrong way when I put hundreds of hours into a dog for service work!
More and more people think they can buy a service dog vest online and a “certification” that is bought and paid for without any training on the dog and pass them off so they can take their pet with them everywhere.
What happens is when a REAL trained service dog that has gone through hundreds of hours of training then tries to go places the ADA provides access to, they are then questioned or denied entry, which is ILLEGAL per Federal ADA laws. This, in fact, happened to me this summer with my personal diabetic alert dog that is highly trained and appropriately behaved.
Telling anyone with a fully trained service dog that they cannot come into a public venue because of previous fake dogs that create a nuisance is a travesty. It is like telling someone they cannot use their wheelchair.
I hope, with this article, that people will reconsider putting a vest on a dog that does not have training AS A SERVICE DOG and prancing them into public places simply because they want their dog with them. This is so cruel to those that truly need that highly trained dog for a real disability.
Fran Jewell is a dog behavior consultant, NADOI-certified instructor and vice president. She owns Positive Puppy Dog Training LLC and can be reached at (208) 721-7221.
