Here is how to behave around a service animal:
- Ignore it. Seriously, pretend the animal just doesn’t exist, beyond exercising due caution to avoid distracting/injuring the animal.
- Do not attempt to talk to, touch, or otherwise interact with service animals.
- Unless you know and are friends with their handlers? Don’t attempt to interact with them either.
- Don’t stare at service animal teams. This is distracting and irritating. Same goes for simpering smiles, comments about how ‘courageous’ they are, etc. Uhm, this should go without saying but just in case: Don’t assume/speculate about why someone is using a service animal.
- These rules also apply to you even if you are an animal lover.
- No really they do.
So important.
If I do get a hypo assistance dog I’m going to have to practice being assertive because most people just don’t get the whole service animal thing.
When we went to see Canine Helpers to talk to them about if they could train a hypo dog (they can’t sadly) there was a gorgeous lab lying down and one of the people said, “Go on, pat him!” and I asked really hesitantly, “Is it ok?” They laughed and replied of course but I didn’t want to be a jerk who just assumed and distracted the dog from his job.
And the dog was so gorgeous and impeccably trained too. Canine Helpers do wonderful work.