*UPDATE* We have suspended your registration agreement which serves as voluntary public acceptance of our training and behavior standards for yourself and your dog.
We have received evidence that you are exploiting the registry and that you do not have a clear understanding of the law or our purpose and are in clear non-compliance with our training and behavior standards on behalf of yourself and your animal. Your actions threaten the reputation of other disabled Service Dog owners who fight every day to have their Service Dogs taken seriously by members of the public.
There are so many scam sites out there for registering your dog as a service dog. One of the largest scam sites is the United States Service Dog Registry or as it is it is more commonly called the USSDR. To prove my point, I had ma go in and register Sarah as her service dog. Ma registered her for free but we could have paid the fee and got the vest and ID card.
This should mean that she can fly for free from now on, right??
You think I am joking? *Updated to remove number since account got suspended for people taking screen shots and sending them to the USSDR*
Hi Bunny,
Congratulations this email contains a confirmation of your login. Please do not share it with anyone.
By registering you've voluntarily accepted a specific set of training and behavior standards which were developed by experienced trainers and disabled Service Dog owners within the Service Dog community. These training and behavior standard s go above and beyond the ADA.
We want to encourage education and compliance with the ADA, the importance of training and the behavior of you and your animal. Remember, you and your Service Dog may be the first team that someone ever meets. It is up to you to make sure that you leave them with an excellent impression. By registering and signing this agreement, you've made a small but important promise to yourself and other disabled individuals who rely on their Service Dogs.
HANDLER Bunny
SERVICE DOG Sarah
Congratulations sissy! You are now a registered service dog.
Does this prove that she is a service dog? It takes more to being a service dog than just a registry.
First off, a person who has a service dog MUST be disabled. According to the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) Service animals are defined as dogs and (under rare cases mini horses) that are individually trained to do work or perform tasks for people with disabilities.
Beginning on March 15, 2011, only dogs are recognized as service animals under titles II and III of the ADA.
A service animal is a dog that is individually trained to do work or perform tasks for a person with a disability.
Service animals are working animals, not pets. The work or task a dog has been trained to provide must be directly related to the person’s disability. Dogs whose sole function is to provide comfort or emotional support do not qualify as service animals under the ADA. Even though some states have laws defining emotional support animals, these animals are not limited to working with people with disabilities and therefore are not covered by federal laws protecting the use of service animals. Information about such laws can be obtained from the State attorney general’s office. It does not matter if a person has a note from a doctor that states that the person has a disability and needs to have the animal for emotional support. A doctor’s letter does not turn an animal into a service animal.
When a service dog handler enters a business there are 2 questions that can be asked ..
(1) is the dog a service animal required because of a disability
(2) what work or task has the dog been trained to perform.
Staff cannot ask about the person’s disability, require medical documentation, require a special identification card or training documentation for the dog, or ask that the dog demonstrate its ability to perform the work or task.
It takes thousands of hours of training a dog to do task that help their disabled handler. There are many sites that you can register your pets to become a service dog, emotional support animal or even a therapy dog. Send these sites x amount of dollars and they will send you a vest and ID card.
These types of sites do not require any proof that the person who is registering their animal is disabled nor do they ask about training. Answer a few questions and they "certify" your animal. The only problem is there is NO CERTIFICATION required for a service dog. Many programs who train service dogs do certify their dogs but its through their program and it shows their dogs have been trained according to their standards.
If you visit Instagram and search the hashtag #ServiceDog or #Serviceanimal you will likely see someone posting their animal stating how they can go anywhere with them now, bragging how they don't have to pay for their pet to fly or saying that now they can't be denied a pet in a no pet housing.
There are times when you read about service dog handlers having problems with access to stores or restaurants to name a few. This goes back to the 2 questions that a business can ask. How is a store or restaurant to know that you have a legitimate service dog, one who has been trained and assist a disabled handler? There may be 10 real service dog teams in the area but there are 20 additional people who are saying their dogs are service dogs to.
We were in a Dollar store one day and the manager of the store asked ma the 2 questions when we went in. We shopped for a while but ma noticed that the workers were keeping a eye on me. We were walking past the manager of the store who was putting up stock and she told ma that she wished all service dogs were quiet and polite like me. Ma said "what do you mean?" The manager went on to tell ma about 2 service dogs who come in the store and one likes to jump up on people and the other one likes to bark and growl at people. Ma educated her about what they could do as a business and gave her one of our cards that have the ADA laws on them. This made her happy. Ma also told her to look up the documentation for businesses on the ADA.Gov website.
Sometimes businesses not only need to know they have to allow a service dog to come in their stores or restaurants but they also need to know they can protect themselves and their customers. Fake service dogs can be a danger to shoppers or those who are eating. I know I wouldn't want to be walking past another service dog team and the supposedly service dog attack me. There are stories after stories of fake service dogs attacking highly trained service dogs.
If you are in a public place and a dog is misbehaving, you can bet either 2 things... the dog is having a off day (we have bad days too) or they are a companion pet and not a trained service dog.
If a service animal behaves in an unacceptable way and the person with a disability does not control the animal, a business or other entity does not have to allow the animal onto its premises. Uncontrolled barking, jumping on other people, or running away from the handler are examples of unacceptable behavior for a service animal. A business has the right to deny access to a dog that disrupts their business. For example, a service dog that barks repeatedly and disrupts another patron’s enjoyment of a movie could be asked to leave the theater.
If a business ask a handler to remove their dog, the business has to allow the person to re-enter the business without the dog.
So I bet you are wondering why ma registered sissy Sarah as a service dog. We wanted to show that the registries online are only in business for your money. If you register your animal or person as a service animal and you have access troubles, you have the law called on you or you have a problem in a business, you will not be protected by the ADA.
Faking a service dog status puts legitimate teams in jeopardy. When a business has asked for an ID card for me, ma hands them one of the ADA cards above. We had a clerk at a fabric store argue with us that I needed a ID card or be in the registry to be a true team. After the clerk read the card and went and looked up the information on the ADA website , she came back and apologized to Ma then she thanked her for educating her.
Education is the key to keeping trained service dogs and their handler safe. Being disabled is hard enough much less having access troubles because of the fake service dog teams.
I am a trained service dog.
I have had thousands of hours of training to help ma with her disability.
If you ever hear me barking in or running alone to the front of a business,
Please come quickly because there is an emergency that I need you to help with.
Do you have any questions? I will try to answer them the best of my ability
Have you ever seen a service dog team that you felt were fake?
*Additional Resources*
ADA Business BRIEF: Service Animals- http://www.ada.gov/svcanimb.htm
Revised ADA Requirements: Service Animals-http://www.ada.gov/service_animals_2010.htm
SERVICE ANIMALS IN PLACES OF BUSINESS http://www.ada.gov/qasrvc.htm