I’m taking the dog everywhere the law allows. Even though my gut says that my dog in a cafe is no greater health risk than a service dog in a cafe, I do my very best to do what’s right.

I just read an interesting piece on fake service dogs. Can you tell? Take a look at it, it’s not a long read and lays out the case against faking it with one’s dog pretty well.

I so love taking Chico with me, he loves it, he’s well enough trained that if I were in Europe where it is permitted, I’d take him to a bar or cafe in a heartbeat, and easy as it would be to slap a jacket on him and take him to the supermarket, and fly him in the cabin for free,  it just isn’t right to do that because I don’t have a disability. And that’s what service dogs do – they help people with disabilities.

(Thanks to James Radford  for this image of a real working service dog.)

So folks who fake, folks who have well behaved dogs and want to take them more places – let’s organize and change the laws, and leave the service dog thing to the folks who really need the help of a canine companion. Are any of my readers of the organizing type? Want to lead the charge to loosen the laws on where dogs can go? I’m behind you, but have no desire to be a leader on that big a project.