Dog owners highlight importance of respecting animals at work

This sounds amazing, I have not watched this video or read the article yet but I love it when service dog owners step up to educate the public because no one’s going to be doing it except you.

You are not obligated to do it but I love it when people choose to do so. So let’s go ahead and get watching!

“A service animal has a multitude of uses helping someone navigate public spaces to providing emotional support…However some locals are having issues with others interacting with their animals. The staff at New Hope assistance…”

Hold on I want to pause just for a second. This is in Warren Pennsylvania from Erie news. It’s my state well one of the things that the newscaster just said, providing emotional support, I want to be very clear about this just in case there’s any confusion. Emotional support is not a task.

Yes can service dogs provide emotional support? A hundred percent, yes. But it is not a task because that is simply something that emotional support animals are for. Just wanted to be clear on that because sometimes there’s confusion on what is and is not a task.

Emotional support is not a task. okay

“…dogs understands the importance of keeping service animals and their handlers safe. We train a service dog to help individuals lead a more productive, independent life. With the help of their assistance, obviously… These dogs are considered to be medical equipment trained to detect an abundance of disorders and attacks ranging from anxiety to seizure disorders.

I was diagnosed with cptsd and it has caused an immune disorder. So Atlas alerts me um for multiple things if my heart rate’s spiking, or if I’m about to have an attack. She is helping me with anxiety. We’re still working with the alert for the PTSD but basically it’s the same. She alerted me before I have any attack. Each dog is trained to do a specific task.

However sometimes they are not always respected by the public. Yeah don’t distract. It’s like you’re saying. Don’t look at them, don’t…”

Yes right. It’s polite to speak to the person. If you see somebody with a service dog then direct questions to the person. It is considered very, very rude to solicit attention from somebody’s service dog out in public. But at the same time we also want to make sure, as Service Dog Handlers and trainers, that we are preparing both our animals and our human clients for those kinds of situations. I like to make that kind of attention as a cue to focus on the Handler. That becomes a natural behavior that they just automatically do over a period of time. Keep in the back of your mind that this is something that you’re training your dog to respond to. It’s not something that should be stressing you out so much.

Not “oh my God someone distracted my dog. My dog’s super distractible and he can’t focus on me to do his job” Right? That dog should be able to handle those instances without it being a problem. Just to put things into perspective.

“…distract them don’t whistle at them. Distracting a service dog can be dangerous as not all disabilities are visible. Leo helps me um he alerts me when my blood sugars are high and low…”

Also look at all of these handlers coming out and saying this and coming up together.
“…um he comforts me when I have panic and anxiety. He wakes me when I have late night terrors… In the end it is best to completely ignore a working dog so as not to distract them from the task they’re doing for their Handler…”

We train service dogs to help individuals lead a more productive and dependent life with the help of their assistants. These dogs are considered to be medical equipment. Training to detect an abundance of disorders and attacks ranging from anxiety to seizure disorders. In the end it is it is best to completely ignore a working dog so as not to distract them from the tasks that they are doing for their Handler.

I love this because you actually get to see the faces behind you know um who are willing to talk about and educate about service dogs. Because in the end it is up to us as handlers and I know that’s super shitty that it is your responsibility to educate the public. And again, you don’t have to if you don’t want to, or if you feel like that is out of your wheelhouse.

But you also have to acknowledge the fact that the world is the way that it is, and in order to make it better somebody out there somewhere has to start doing the education.

And I’m really glad and really proud of these handlers who were willing to go onto television and speak about what their dogs do to help them. The struggle that they’re going through with the distractions and just really overall great for them stepping up! That’s amazing.