Stop Faking Service Dogs
<p><pre><code>    And why aren’t there more dog-friendly restaurants, bars, music venues, and 
    other businesses? There are nearly 90 million pet dogs in this country. 
    That’s a huge market, but also a huge problem when us owners act 
    inappropriately. As animal lovers, creating and supporting dog-friendly 
    businesses should be our priority. Acting selfishly to the detriment of 
    others will not create a more dog-friendly future. We want to be able to 
    take our dogs to more places, more often, but we have to make sure doing so 
    is appropriate and doesn’t infringe on the rights and well-being of people 
    who need real service dogs.
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I don&#x27;t understand this remedy. How will making it easier for the average Joe Public to take his ill-behaved pet everywhere make it easier for those with disabilities who require service animals? Won&#x27;t that just make it more likely that service animals encounter other animals which interfere with their duties?<p>I think the real answer is to actually have certifications and licenses which effectively differentiate service animals from ordinary pets. Right now, there&#x27;s pretty much nothing that anyone can do to prove that their &quot;service animal&quot; is actually well-trained enough to be in a public place without causing trouble. So, of course, people are abusing the system in order to get their ill-behaved pets into public areas. The solution to that problem isn&#x27;t to make every public area open to pets, the solution is to have a clearer way of differentiating well trained service animals from ill-behaved pets.<p>EDIT: The main fallacy that I see in the article is that it seems to be treating pet ownership as some kind of fundamental right, and sees the &quot;fake service animal&quot; phenomenon as a way that people are exercising this right without working to change the system to make the exercise of this right easier. I don&#x27;t agree with that worldview at all. Owning a pet is a privilege. If you find yourself in circumstances that are routinely unfriendly to owning a pet, <i>don&#x27;t own a pet</i>.