My town had its annual "Pumpkin Festival" yesterday, which is just a big craft and vendor fair with food trucks and local organizations cooking stuff like fried dough and burgers and such. Dogs are never allowed, but people bring them anyway. Some were pissed they were turned away when others weren't. This sparked a huge debate about service dogs and emotional support dogs on Facebook. (more) #DogsOfCoSo
The police department made a post about how dogs weren't allowed and then made mention of "therapy" dogs. I commented as an FYI that there's a difference between therapy, service and emotional support dogs. And went into the descriptions. One guy jumped all over me and called me stupid and told me to "read the laws." I think he, himself, was confused. (more) #DogsOfCoSo
His argument (and he was definitely arguing) was that ESAs are protected under state law and I'm stupid. So I sent him a lovely link that says they're not. Not even under the ADA. Gotta love the keyboard warriors who swear they're right and didn't even check first. My ultimate point is.. service dogs are wonderful. Bringing your pet everywhere because you want to and faking that it's a service dog is not. #DogsOfCoSo
@sarcasmsign my BFF trains service dogs for vets with CPTSD. She brings them everywhere while training obviously and some people have been real idiots about it. Spouse gets people bringing pets into his store all the time so he knows the laws very well and what he can and cannot ask along with what he is allowed to tolerate from idiots claiming “it’s my service animal” for the shaking chihuahua they’re carrying in their hoodie 🙄
@annamuneca Yeah you can very clearly tell the difference. Especially when they're in training. There was a lady who used to bring her small Yorkie mix something into Walmart and have it sitting in the cart and call it her ESA, and it would try to bite people. I think Walmart was finally like come on.. stop bringing the dog. 😂