Here at STAND WITH ME, we train veteran/dog teams for service dog work. Our mission is to help veterans with a service-connected mental health disability, to train their own dogs to be their service dog. You may see us out and about in the Triple Cities public places, training dogs. You may see us during lessons, with a veteran and their dog taking instruction from the training instructor and her dog. Or, you might see one of our veteran/dog teams out in public, doing their practice homework on their own.
Please be respectful of a disabled person’s wish to go about their business in peace. As our veteran students make their way through a store, they sometimes experience a dozen or more interruptions from strangers while they are out on an errand. It can turn a 10 minute errand into an hour long struggle and be very stressful and tiring. Please be respectful of our veteran students and follow the suggestions below for etiquette.
ETIQUETTE FOR TIMES WHEN YOU SEE A “SERVICE DOG IN TRAINING” OR A “SERVICE DOG AT WORK”
- DO ADMIRE IN A QUICK GLANCE, SMILE, AND COMMENT “NICE DOG” AS YOU CONTINUE TO WALK BY - When you smile and compliment, but keep moving and don’t invade the dog handler’s space or time, you will improve a disabled veteran’s day. You’ve not stressed them, distracted them, nor intruded on their time or privacy. You’ve just complimented them on how well they’re doing with their training project and given them a boost.
- DO NOT TOUCH - Read the sign on the dog’s vest. Respect it. If a dog is wearing a vest that has the words “do not touch” on it, don’t even ask to pet that dog.
- DO NOT STARE - No one likes to be stared at. It leaves one feeling uncomfortable at best, and targeted at worst.
- REMAIN AWARE THAT NOT ALL DISABILITIES ARE VISIBLE - If you see a person with a dog that is wearing a “Service Dog In Training” vest, don’t make assumptions. So many of our disabled veteran students who are training their dogs under our tutelage & coaching have had the public ask them “who are you training the dog for?” That disabled veteran is then put in the awkward position of figuring out how to answer without speaking of their private life struggles to a total stranger.
- DO NOT ASK INVASIVE QUESTIONS OF THE HUMAN HANDLER OR STRIKE UP A CONVERSATION ABOUT DOGS - We all love to admire beautifully behaved dogs and share in friendly dog story chatting about dogs. But please be aware that the person with the dog might be on a tight time schedule. They might also be a shy person who feels awkward and stressed when being approached by strangers. Your approach might be coming from a friendly place inside yourself, but please understand that the disabled veteran on the receiving end of your approach might be feeling “put on the spot” and stressed by your questions.
This is Myrph speaking. I’m the director and training instructor for Stand With Me. I’m going to share a short story here to exemplify why we must leave service dogs alone. My own dog, Isla (pronounced Eye’-Lah) is VERY outgoing and friendly. She loves to visit and find a way to get strangers to touch her and stroke her. But she is being trained to service-dog standards, as she must be the example that our veteran service-dog students strive for. She’s the “demo-dog”. I was at a social function recently, and I decided to allow Isla to behave like a Therapy-Dog rather than a Service-Dog for this one day. She had no vest on, and I allowed everyone to visit and pet her. Isla was in heaven. HOWEVER, it took two weeks of daily training sessions to undo the damage done to our training progress that day. Service dogs are required to stay within one foot of their handler at all times (unless performing a specific task that requires them to be a greater distance from their handler). Service dogs must NEVER become a disruption in public. They must purposefully ignore other dogs and all people. After that one day of allowing the public to handle my dog, it took two weeks of daily work to get her back on track to NOT leave my side to approach strangers and lean on them, and get them to pet her. Insist that she NOT put her nose up someone’s skirt standing in line behind us. Insist that she NOT lick the baby’s face in the stroller that was close by. I hope this story helps you understand how hard it is to get a dog to leave people alone in public. When you socially interact with a service-dog-in-training, you are sabotaging their training progress.
Thank you for caring enough to read this and for your understanding.
Here are a couple other articles that you mind find interesting:
- Service and Emotional Support Animals: Clearing Up the Confusion by Penny Conly Ellison
- The Problems With Service Dogs, the ADA, and PTSD By Erin Maynard