I am personally extremely tired of seeing random misbehaved non service breeds in red amazon.com vests which say "service dog". It's entitled, disrespectful to the public, disrespectful to the rule of law, and disrespectful to individuals who legitimately require a service animal. I will loudly state "oh nice it's one of those fake service dogs" at the aquarium, you cannot stop me. I also loudly announce "No dogs on the walking path, thank you citizen" at the public park when people ignore posted signs. Every single square foot of our world is not a playground for the invasive species you keep exclusively for emotional and social benefits. My productive milk cow, on the other hand...
When I lived in California, it was common for restaurants to allow dogs in outdoor seating, especially sidewalk seating. My wife and I took full advantage of this; with full permission of the restaurant staff.
I was rather surprised about 12 years ago when we were looking to move in together, and someone told us, "oh, you can get around this building's no dogs policy with a doctor's note." That really bothered us.
We ended up moving to a place that was within walking distance of a great dog-friendly (on the patio) bar. I walked our dog there nearly every weekend!
There's now a restaurant in town (Massachusetts) that proudly claims their patio is dog friendly. I might take advantage of it when my puppy is a little calmer.
> I was rather surprised about 12 years ago when we were looking to move in together, and someone told us, "oh, you can get around this building's no dogs policy with a doctor's note." That really bothered us.
That's a federal rule around emotional support dogs I think?
Honestly I think landlords should just be banned for having those kinds of rules against common pets like some saner countries, so I don't have a problem with people getting around it. Landlords in the US have too much power over tenants.
In the US it's the Fair Housing Act. Basically if the dog is providing necessary emotional support then the landlord can't prevent them from being with you in your home (I think there might be a carve out for nuisance dogs, but the dog doesn't need to be specifically trained for anything in particular to qualify).
It's a really low bar for a dog to qualify as an Emotional Support Animal. Which is great for people who need it, but is SO easy to abuse.
It only gives permission for someone to live with their dog though. It doesn't give someone any rights to bring their dog to restaurants and stuff though, even though people try. That's reserved for Service Animals.
This is not in fact a federal rule. https://www.ada.gov/resources/service-animals-2010-requireme...
It actually is, it's just not from the ADA: https://www.dva.wa.gov/counseling/service-and-companion-anim...
> The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is a federal agency that administers the Fair Housing Act (FHA). Under the FHA, a service animal is defined as an animal that is a necessary reasonable accommodation for a person with a disability. Emotional support animals and comfort animals ARE included in the HUD definition and are therefore allowed into a person's dwelling.
> There should be no "pet fee" for the service animal. The person with the disability must request the animal as a reasonable accommodation for the disability, and must be able to show that the animal is necessary because of the person's disability.
Basically it's using a more expansive definition of "service animal" than is typical, such that just about anyone could probably get their pets to qualify if they want.
The issue is that, as I understand it, it's a rather broad definition of disability too, including stuff like being depressed.
Some of us want to live in no-dog buildings and we should have that option.
In practice it just becomes landlords suppressing what people can do in their homes to make things easier for themselves. Landlords would also happily ban parties or children if they could somehow get away with it. That some people would be happy with a no-child or no-party building wouldn't make that okay either.
That said, if it was a matter of a small number of buildings being allowed to designate themselves as no-pet/no-dog, I'd probably be okay with that. Things like this only tend to become a problem if you let anyone do it.
Is there any regulation that stops landlords from prohibiting parties? The internet suggests that this does ever appear in leases, and to the extent that it's not common it's likely just because it's hard to enforce.
They are called single family homes.
Then get used to the fact that other people in your building may have other lifestyles. The double standard is incredible. You can’t live in a single family home because it’s not affordable, yet you want pet owners to not be in apartments, implying they need to live in single family homes to be able to keep a pet.
Having moved from the EU (Germany) to the US there seems to be a LOT of these bad-faith skirtings of reasonable laws, especially in automotive (eg. license plate screens, window tint etc.) where lack of enforcement is abused and will eventually lead to the penaltization of the general public.
I moved from Ireland to the US and noticed the same. So many people in the US treat others as if they are NPCs. Rules only exist so that they can’t bother you, but the rules don’t apply to you. It is extremely frustrating!
I assume this is largely a US thing? Do other places have similar behaviors? I seem to recall many people from over seas were surprised that we let dogs in the house.
That last is always amusing to contrast with how hard of a line some people take on not doing shoes in the house, but then seemingly fine with pets.
US rules around service animals (typically dogs) are a bit odd. You're allowed to take a service dog nearly anywhere, which itself is fine, but the problem is that there's no official licensing system that a business could somehow check to make sure your animal is legit. Legally, they're only allowed to ask what service the animal provides and they can kick it out if it's disruptive. So the inevitable result is people taking advantage of this legal gray area by bringing in dogs that they pretend are sorta-service dogs (emotional support/therapy dogs) and getting away with it for the reasons explained in the article. And once those dogs are normalized, then it seems like dogs in general are okay and so just about anyone might decide to bring in their dog.
A common point of comparison here is handicapped parking spots, since it's also a situation where the handicapped are granted a special privilege to mitigate the handicap, but obviously for parking spots there's a whole legal system for being allowed to park in those special spots. You can't just "self certify" that you can park in a handicapped spot, you have to get a placard from the government that you put on display on your car.
An interesting note is a service dog is basically medical equipment. They override any other disability. Including people with unfortunate combination of severe asthma and dog allergy.
If you have an employee who has been previously sent to a hospital due to a customer’s service dog, you need to figure out a solution because you’re not allowed to ban the dog. And you’re not allowed to fire the employee because they have a medical condition.
You can easily buy handicap placards online. It's actually pretty similar to the dog thing, mostly a way to get out of paying for parking
But unlike the dog thing, using a fake handicapped placard is actually illegal, and if you’re caught doing it, in most states there are significant fines. Some states even have jail time for repeat offenders.
I'm not talking about fake placards. You can get real ones online very easily via telehealth, or in person from many chiropractor or other sham providers
Clearly we need such a licensing system, and such license would need to be displayed on the service animal. The lack thereof seems like yet another indicator that our government cannot legislate itself out of a paper bag.
The problem is that when the ADA was passed no one conceived that a change in culture would make it common for people to want to bring their dogs into restaurants and coffee shops.
And now that it is common, there’s no political will to revisit this issue.
There's probably political will at the local or state level in some areas, but of course local and state laws can't override a federal one like the ADA.
I completely agree, though unlike the author I don't really have an issue with people bringing dogs into some kinds of businesses. Restaurants and grocery stores no, but something like a hardware store I'm fine with.
Non-food establishments generally don't ban dogs, or don't enforce it at all. I've taken a dog into many such places. It's my wife's chihuahua, so I just carry her - no risk that she will use the store as a latrine.
Most countries do not mandate accessibility in public accomodations to the extent the United States does.
Since the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, any disabled person can sue a business and get statutory penalties for a lack of accomodation. Wrongfully denying a service dog can cost tens of thousands of dollars.
Europe doesn't have this mechanism. There's less abuse of accomodations as a result. But nothing is wheelchair accessible.
30 or 40 years ago it was much more common for people to have outside dogs in the US.
But it was also common to tie dogs up for long periods of time, which in most places will get you fined these days.
This topic is ragebait. I predict the comment section will be pointless name calling than genuine discussion.
Well you weren't too far off. Already calls for execution on the spot for barking and role playing robocop or something. Some very stable minds or russian bots, I dunno.
Not sure why this is on HN at all tbh
Did you just assume the bots’ nationality?
I really disagree with the owners statement that therapy dogs should never be able to get licensed. If they go through the same training as current disability dogs, then what’s the problem exactly? There are enough non-visible disabilities where dogs can be useful, for instance in panic disorders where they can recognise it before the owner.
In regards to dogs in coffee shops, etc. Aslong as there are enough spaces that allow dogs, it shouldn’t be a problem when most other places don’t allow them. I think there are enough people that enjoy dogs to make that work.
I met a couple that had paid $100 to get a fake service dog certification. I guess the training is extremely hard and many people don't want to do it.
I have a miniature golden doodle that I try to take to as many places as possible. But if there is a place that is strict, I end up just having to crate her.
Under the ADA, the kind of dog youre describing would be a service dog, same as any other. "Therapy dog" isn't a term that the ADA uses.
You can totally have a legitimate service dog for invisible disabilities.
Licenses don't mean anything in the US btw. The law does not require it and having a "license" is meaningless. Sometimes a training organization might vouch for the dogs skills, but that isn't a license and doesn't legally mean anything.
> If they go through the same training as current disability dogs, then what’s the problem exactly?
With guide dogs the benefit is huge - someone can get around without human assistance.
With "emotional support" animals it just means someone gets to take their pet with them to have coffee. Not a big enough benefit to outweigh the downsides.
The wonderful New Yorker article "Pets Allowed" comes to mind. Turtles, turkeys, and so on.
> unless they are a licensed service animal
The problem in the US is that there is no such thing. You can ask “whether the animal is required due to a disability?” and “what tasks has the animal been trained to assist with?” The trouble with this is that you can construct any animal to pass those tests with some creativity. For example, trying to bring the family dog to an AirBnB: 1) “yes” 2) “The dog alerts me by barking when someone comes to the door” (i.e. most dogs). Access Granted. The second answer is reasonable for hard-of-hearing individuals, but you cannot actually ask if the person is hard of hearing, so you simply have to accept that the dog is a service dog.
Society wants a licensure system, but for some reason we’re not being provided with one in the US.
Does that loophole actually come up in practice very often? The impression I get is that it's much more common for people to either not know which questions they're legally entitled to ask, or not want to.
Is this a question of the people following the law or not liking dogs? I ask because people breaking the law bugs the crap out of me and it's specifically "breaking the law", not the behavior itself. Meaning, if the law changed the behavior would no longer bother me.
For me it's about
(1) being law abiding and therefore a sucker to all those who get away with more than they're supposed to
(2) being afraid of selective enforcement - for example if it's traffic violation and it's enforced on me then my "points" go up which means my car insurance goes up. It's already at $4k a year with no points. One additional point is average ~$4680. So i don't want break at and fume at those who do but don't get caught.
So yea, seeing people take dogs where they are not supposed to, run red lights (bikes or cars), make right turns on red on "no right turn on red" places, make illegal left turns, speeding, walking un "bikes only lanes", etc all piss me off.
I go to local farmer's markets. There are signs everywhere, "No Pets". No one is obeying this law. Literally no one. WTF do they have the signs? All non-enforcement does is bread contempt for laws in general. Either enforce it or remove the signs.
Same with other laws. In other words, if the law was changed, these things suddenly wouldn't bug me. I recognise this as strange but I also feel laws and their enforcement is how we as a society enforce cooperation living together. Non enforcement = people taking advantage = worse society.
> I go to local farmer's markets. There are signs everywhere, "No Pets". No one is obeying this law. Literally no one. WTF do they have the signs? All non-enforcement does is bread contempt for laws in general. Either enforce it or remove the signs.
Is that a law, or just a rule from the farmer's market?
>I go to local farmer's markets. There are signs everywhere, "No Pets". No one is obeying this law. Literally no one. WTF do they have the signs? All non-enforcement does is bread contempt for laws in general. Either enforce it or remove the signs.
I think this is just health code where the law is forcing them to put up these signs but nobody actually cares if there's dogs there, it's not really needed to ban dogs there, and the only people who want to enforce that rule are people who really like rules.
While I agree with the broader point that people should not abuse rules that are meant to accommodate for real needs ... this seems like the smallest-scale example of our society falling away from having meaningful rules right now. If you have the energy to be a Karen about rule-breaking and bad-faith behavior, please take a look at your elected officials, their actions, and their business dealings.
Whatabout...
I feel too, at least in the US, people have backed themselves into a corner where they are unable to dole out punishment. Not just for violating or abusing taking their dogs everywhere, but literally everything. Should someone be punished for a prank gone wrong? Of course not, they didn’t mean it, it was just a prank! Should someone be punished for faking a therapy dog? Of course not, it’s just a dog! Should someone be punished for speeding? Of course not, it’s just speeding and all cops are bad! Should someone get in trouble for minor theft? Of course not, it’s just minor theft, capitalism is bad! Eventually though they end up on the side being taken advantage of and now they have no recourse because they are all in on the no consequences society. If they speak up, their peers who are also part of the no consequences society disown them, until it then also happens to them. I guess that’s an oversimplified version of it. If nothing is a crime then you can have no criminals, society is better already, and you all get A+, yeah for us!
I believe the ultimate expression of this would be to elect a felon as the leader of society.
Why would therapy dogs craft legal loopholes in the first place
Because people broadly understand that service dogs are a legally protected thing but not the exact details of the relevant laws, and this leads to interesting consequences when combined with increasing awareness of mental health in recent years. Probably in another decade the controversy will have settled somewhat.
Crazy to have lawyer dogs before flying cars
Shih-tzus are some of the most persuasive negotiators.
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Leaving aside the over-the-top violent rhetoric and the issues around emotional support animals, the relevant regulatory guidance is that you can make a service dog leave if it barks repeatedly, but not if it barks just once. (https://nmcourts.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Service-Anim... I'm pretty sure I read similar language from the federal Civil Rights Division once but can't find it right now)
Is violence your response to everything?
They did say they go to the mall every week. As far as I'm concerned, in 2025, that's akin to announcing "I'm a psychopath!"
Since OP is a coward and deleted their comment, here is a quote from an old refresh of the page I prepared earlier to corroborate this:
> Rewrite the law so if a "service dog" barks they get executed on the spot. The problem will fix itself. Downvoted cause everybody knows that barking is the true marker of not being a real well trained service dog. I'm at the mall surrounded by yappy Chihuahuas on a weekly basis.
> Bring your "service dog" in here, but you better train them if they're legit. How are they easing your anxiety by barking at me? Makes no sense.
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99.99% of the time it’s a way to bring your dog in the cabin instead of sedated in a crate (not something I want to do to my dog, so i get it).
But for the other 0.01% of the time - your statement is quite prejudiced. Barring people with a disability from the main way travel distance is not the world i want to live in. Everyone is entitled to reasonable accommodations for their differences. Might as well say children can’t fly - they’re “emotionally unstable”.
I’ve sat next to people who’re afraid of flying. It looks awful. If a dog on your lap helps you avoid a panic attack it seems like we can find a way to make that work without too much trouble.
Note that airlines aren't in fact required to allow emotional support animals in the U.S. I suppose I wouldn't be against loosening the "animal must perform a task" requirement as long as the "animal must be under control" requirement remains intact.
> bring your dog in the cabin instead of sedated in a crate
Bring your dog in the cabin without paying the fee, also. My wife flies with our (her, really) dog in the cabin all the time. She pays the fee, and the dog does have to be small (IIRC 10 kg is the cutoff, but I could be wrong). But small dogs in a proper carrier are acceptable.
The fee seems like rent-seeking on the part of the airlines, so while I'm not going to agitate for prohibiting it or anything, I'm also not going to shed any tears if people skirt it in a way that doesn't inconvenience anyone.
Agreed. People are pushing the boundaries a bit too far and it's going to end up harming the people who truly do need animals like this with them in public.
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I'll stop ignoring no dogs in parks signs when drivers stop ignoring speed limit signs
I wouldn’t recommend that kind of behavior around Auburn.
My son attended a forest school for three years, located in the middle of a protected nature preserve. The preserve has clear signage posted throughout stating that dogs are not allowed on the trails.
Despite that, there were many mornings when I’d be walking back to my car after drop-off and would see someone heading toward the trails with a dog. I always made a point to politely let them know about the rule and that a staff member would likely ask them to leave once spotted.
This happened at least 70 times over the three years my son was enrolled. Out of all those instances, only one person actually turned around and left with their dog.
The issue became so frequent that preserve staff had to involve law enforcement and began issuing trespass notices. While I only personally witnessed this once, the director told me it became a regular occurrence.
The one time I did see it unfold was honestly kind of entertaining. I gave my usual friendly heads-up to a couple with a small dog. The woman scoffed and said something like, “It’s just a small dog,” and continue into the forest. I went back to my car to send some work emails and Slack messages — and a few minutes later, watched as she was led out of the preserve in handcuffs. Apparently, she gave the same attitude to the responding officer.
Demand free Palestine, while you're there, just to make sure you don't suddenly run out of reasons to continue being obnoxious.
Most of the responses usually devolve into emotional ones, both from dog lovers and dog haters. As a dog owner I support common sense acceptable rules:
1. No dogs in stores that have fresh produce, dairy and meat 2. No off leash dogs in public areas except in dedicated off leash areas 3. No dogs in restaurants indoors 4. Severe penalties if you parade your unbehaved dog as a service dog
But at the same time, dog haters keep pushing it to the point where you cannot have dogs beyond the confines of your home (the home cannot be an apartment building). People don’t want dogs in apartments and they don’t want them in ANY public areas. The same people will also oppose dedicated dog parks or ensure these parks are extremely small.
Around half the households in the country have a dog. There needs to be a middle ground.
> I also loudly announce "No dogs on the walking path, thank you citizen" at the public park when people ignore posted signs.
???
Having a no dogs allowed rule on a walking path at a park feels so weird to me.
Walking path at my tennis park is for people only. No dogs, no bikes, and I'm not even allowed to skate it. Personally I'd like dogs only at dog parks but we're not there as a society.
We need to get much safer dog parks. Too many of them are just huge areas of off leash dogs and it's terrible for the dogs involved. It breeds bad play behaviors, dog-dog reactivity, spreads disease between dogs, and encouraged bad owners who just let their dog run free unsupervised.
Dogs that spend a lot of time in dog parks are way more likely to behave badly when they see other dogs when they are out for a walk.
It's so weird for me to see anti dog park talk on the internet because my experience has been very positive with dog parks in general. Almost all the dogs are basically fine, serious behavioral issues are rare. Sometimes dogs get a little too rowdy playing but owners are always quick to step in. I wonder if it's a regional dog owner culture thing (I'm in a suburb of Seattle for reference).
Why? Are squirrels and butterflies banned too? Shall we sterilize the world so it's just humans and cement?
Damaging the ecology of... the local tennis park? I have some news for you... the ecology there is already damaged.
Squirrel and butterfly poop is not a problem. Nor are there 80lb+ squirrels and butterfly’s bred for aggressive qualities.
Tigers/lions/bears/chimps are generally not allowed either.
I personally think we have this all wrong, and that all species should have to comply with some level of public decorum to be allowed in public human-dominated spaces.
If a dog doesn't make loud noises, physically agitates others, or excessively spread diseases (slobbering all over the place), it seems fine to let them be in the same place. If someone has allergies, an agreement can usually be worked out to create distance, but if it can't we should favor the human.
So in a sense, I agree with you: They should have licenses that can be revoked based on their behavior. I don't really care if they're for service reasons or otherwise, I just care they're fit to be in public. Some dogs are, some aren't. Basically, we should be comfortable with fascistic enforcement around dog's behaviorally. That seems like a healthy middle-ground.
Honest question: how can you distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate therapy dogs if the owner doesn't have a visible handicap?
Like what if a veteran struggling with PTSD has a therapy dog to help keep them emotionally regulated? Or is that a fake service animal by your defintion?
I agree that people abuse this system, but if you're publicly shaming people, how do you avoid false positives?
Emotional support animals that don't perform a specific task never qualify as service animals; whether the human has any particular diagnosis doesn't matter.
Right, but how would one know just from walking by someone in the park whether their support animal performs a specific task?
If you're a business ask the two legally permited questions (from the ADA):
- Is the dog a service animal required because of a disability?
- What work or task has the dog been trained to perform?
Most of the time the second question will throw off the fake owners.
No, I get that. I was responding specifically to the idea of going around trying to publicly shame people based on just seeing them with their service animal.
Generally the behavior of the animal is a dead give away. Trained service animals don't wander away from their owners, seek attention from strangers, react to other animals, eat things off of the ground, and will sit directly beside their owners or under a table if so instructed. If you see a dog behaving differently, that dog isn't a trained service animal.
Legit service dogs are legit, go watch footage of them working. I'll probably eventually be wrong someday and have to apologize profusely but that's the risk you run.
The cringiest hill to die on might be the hill of exaggerated moral panic.
There are about 931283918982 more important issues than someone being offended at seeing a dog in close proximity at a place where you have an opinion that they shouldn't be.
As long as your pet doesn't come in contact with my food or defecate near it, you really should focus on more important things in life.
Fallacy of relative privation
Just goes to show what I've always said: People that hate dogs are just as insufferable as people that think their dogs are people.
People are insufferable, especially when they're contesting the same shared space over different ways of use. There' no point in hating dogs - or bicycles - they're not the problem, being inconsiderate is.
(That's for both sides, though there is a certain asymmetry in those cases. For example, my 4yo kid isn't going to kill an adult cyclist speeding down the narrow path in the park leading directly to the kindergarten, because they're in a hurry or it's some stupid "bicycle May" thing and they're scoring silly points, or something. The reverse however, is very much likely.)
Are you Robocop?
The idea that only uniformed officers are allowed to enforce social norms is a major part of what got us into this mess to begin with.
Major whoosh moment here.
The RoboCop reference is clearly because of the phrasing:
> "No dogs on the walking path, thank you citizen"
Pick up that poop, citizen.
Respect the badge - I earned it with my blood.
No, just fun at parties.