I want to offer some clarification about the service dog questions. Anyone can legally ask two questions of a person with a service dog:Sadly here ppl have ruined it for me with their dogs. So again it is the ppl not the dogs fault. I love my dogs but they stay home.
Some ppl around here think they can bring their dogs into stores let them pee/poo all over the place and they leave it. This happens in Walmart, Kroger, Costco, HD, Lowes you name it. All sorts or places. It's is not very often but it happens enough. Now the ones that really **** me off is the stores with food. I've seen dogs dart all over/ jumping on ppl, the owners can't control them or just can't be bothered, barking or trying to attack another dog they see. Ppl don't care and they know that the stores can't ask them to leave because I'm told it is against the law to ask because they cannot be asked if they have a service animal. So it continues over and over and will get worse as this sense of entitlement continues.
1. Is that a service dog?
2. What duty does it perform in service to you?
That's it. Nothing else. So any store manager can ask any of these people these two questions, and ask them to remove the dog from the premises if it is not a genuine service dog doing its duty. It is a federal offense to lie about it, so its no joke.
I see dogs in those same stores around here, but I have not seen those problems, thank goodness. I have have seen those problems with people traveling with phony service dogs in airports. Its disgusting on one hand, but on the other hand, the airlines have made it all but impossible to travel your dogs any other way. More and more rules, and more and more ignorant people enforcing those rules, or making up new ones as they go. I travel with dogs through airports several times a year, and have done so for 30 years as part of my job, so I have seen a lot of non-sense that simply shouldn't be. I had one little jerk of a man in New Orleans that wouldn't let my 65 pound dog fly home in a crate made for a 125 pound dog. He said the crate was too small for the dog. His boss in another state backed him up. He had the customer service managers for two different airlines telling him to let me fly, and he refused. The first time it happened, I had to drive home in February. I got hit by an ice storm going through Texas and thought I was going to die. The second time it happened, I went around the little A-hole and did this:
One service dog and one celebrity dog. I tried and tried really really hard to ship them the way we were supposed to, but that control freak whacko wouldn't let me.
I've had similar problems all over the country and all over the world from Mexico to Morocco. I fly out of LAX with no problems ever. Crate size? Check. Bowls? Check. Bedding? Check. Health cert? Check. Rabies cert? Check... When I try to fly home with the same dogs in the same crates from NYC, New Orleans, Orlando, Chicago, etc... I get nothing but problems and have to literally argue my way home. Its not fun, and they can simply say "no" anytime they feel like it for any whim of a reason. When I see those people in the airports with their dogs jumping around, pooping on the floor, or barking incessantly, I wonder if some jackass at cargo refused to let them fly for some arbitrary ridiculous reason. I think of the pitiful little man in the cargo terminal at New Orleans. What are people to do when left with no other option? Some people choose to lie in a desperate effort to get home with their dog, and the dog is not ready for that sort of thing. We spend months getting any dog ready for air travel. Some of the dogs I've seen in the airport aren't even ready for a walk around their own block.
The airlines have been cracking down on this, so I've seen a lot less of this in recent years. I have seen a whole lot more doggy day care, boarding center type places popping up though...