Hello everyone,
We would like to share an article from a graduate from the Seeing Eye who has a Golden retriever guide dog called Chester.
The article explains and shows her perspective of some of the hassles everyday we have from pets and fake service dogs.
“This is Chester (A golden retriever service dog)
In his free time, he loves to chase tennis balls, sneak random household objects into his crate when no one is looking, and chase the water coming out of the hose when the kids play outside.
Ya know what else he does though when he’s not relaxing in his free time?
He works. He works, because he earned the right to. He works, because he was trained by skilled, credible trainers to perform specific tasks for specific reasons. He works, because he passed that training while so many got rejected for reasons as small as being too distracted by leaves blowing in the wind.
He works.
When his harness is on, my life, quite literally, is his responsibility.
He doesn’t just stop at curbs and staircases. He doesn’t just guide me around obstacles in my path that I may not see. He ignores my commands when he knows that I am wrong. Commands that have been drilled into his head by those awesome trainers… he learned to disregard if he knew that his judgement was better than mine. Sure, he knows “left,” “right,” and, “forward,” but he also knows that if I tell him to go forward and he sees a car coming off in the distance that I may not see, then he should not listen to me.
He guides me around low-hanging branches. He finds empty chairs at coffee shops and ends of lines at grocery stores. He can find my friend’s house when all of the driveways look the same to me, and he can find trash cans, doorknobs and service counters if I ask him to.
Over $60,000. was spent to make sure he had the best breeding, the best genetics, the best training, the best 2.5 first years of his life as possible, because that is how long it took for him to get to the point where he was ready to wear the title of “service dog.”
Ya know what can ruin his entire career in as quick as a few seconds?
Someone taking fluffy to Target with a vest they bought on Amazon, calling fluffy a service animal even though she’s not, and then untrained fluffy attacking Chester when he’s trying to do his job.
It may sound like it wouldn’t happen, but it happens all the time.
Yale was attacked on 2 different occasions by 2 different dogs that were labeled as “emotional support animals.”
Both almost ending his career as a Seeing Eye Dog, which would’ve been a shame, because Yale was amazing at his job.
Trainers had to fly down from New Jersey to FSU where I was going to school at the time so they could work with Yale on being less distracted by dogs after that.
A service dog cannot afford to be distracted by other dogs. Like I said, my life was, quite literally, his responsibility when he was working.
Ya know why he was distracted by dogs after all that money and all that training? It wasn’t because he was a bad service dog. It was because he was so worried about the possibility of getting attacked again.
But… if that doesn’t resonate, you could also look at it this way.
Picture what it would be like if you were constantly being viewed as “less than.”
Picture what it would be llike if you had to work twice as hard as everyone else just to be able to fit in and seem normal to those people who take it for granted.
Picture what it would be like if you were constantly being judged by the rest of society for something that was 100% out of your control.
Now, picture wanting to go get a cup of coffee.
Picture not being able to drive yourself there, so you have to rely on someone else.
Picture not being able to see well enough to know where the door is to get inside. Picture not being able to find the counter, or to see if there is a line, or to know if there are chairs or other things that you will run into as you look for these things.
As mentioned above, people already view you as less than. They already think you’re weird or incapable. They already judge you… but now, while trying to do something as simple as get coffee at Starbucks, you’re seemingly confirming their judgement by not being able to do something as simple as find the counter to place your order.
Why would you even bother going places, right?
Who wants to be made to feel that way?
But then, you get a service dog, and short of driving you there, the dog can do all of those things for you. So, while you may look weird because you have a dog in public, at least you can do most of what everyone else can do in a way.
People may still stare at you, but at least they’re smiling because they can relate to the dog rather than staring as they roll their eyes because they can’t relate to your disability.
All is well, right?
Well, sure… except for the fact that, thanks to everyone who tries to take their pets in public with their wanna-be service dog vests, laws have become unclear to many, so now, even popular businesses who should know better do not want to let service dogs in without a fight, because they’ve had untrained fake service dogs come in and cause trouble.
This may be easily shrugged off if it happens once or twice, but when it’s all the time, it becomes harder to show grace and nicely explain the law.
Going back to the coffee example.
It’s not always easy to find rides to do things when you can’t drive. You already feel like a burden. You already don’t want to inconvenience people…. And then to be stopped at the door and told the dog is not welcome, the dog who had endless money and training and effort and time poured into him in order to earn the title of service dog, the dog who was trained to perform specific tasks for the purpose of helping you to be able to be as close to society’s version of normal as possible…. Is not welcome, usually out of fear that either is or will act like a pet.
Ya know why that concern is there? Because Fluffy’s owner bought a vest on Amazon and thought that meant she could be brought in public.
It’s a bit exhausting.
Why am I sharing this after midnight when I should be asleep?
Because people don’t realize the impact they have when they label their pet as something that it’s not.
Don’t be one of those people!
Leave Fluffy at home. Don’t demand that Fluffy should have the same rights as Chester.
The ripples of the negative impact extend further than you realize.
(And this is coming from someone who has formally been diagnosed with PTSD and anxiety. I am, in no way, saying that those aren’t valid).”