#service dogs

[pixierainbows]

(Image Description in ALT text.)

I saw that people were sending Pixie pictures of their pets, so here is my dog Melody! Melody took a shower today, so she is extra fluffy. She’s also a service dog like Sunshine is.

fluffy 🦮 !! :) :) :) thank you for share !

#not pixie pictures #service dogs #fluffy #asks and answers

[punkclowngod]

I don’t think I’ve talked much about having a service dog on here, but maybe I should

Boom used to be my service dog, I got him the summer before my last year of high school bcuz I needed a nurse 24/7 to ensure I could eat/sleep/stay alive due to a recent very traumatizing event in my life and my mom came up with the service dog idea.

Getting him was hard. And expensive. No trainers were up to my standards. I, who could barely take care of myself, had to train my own dog. The problem is no matter how hard I worked, my own family or other trainers would ruin it all by messing up my commands, by letting my dog do things I had trained him not to do. It wasn’t training anymore, I ended up simply having breakdowns because everyone kept ruining my dog. People close to me thought they could be an exception to the rules I had taught my MEDICAL AID because surely my DOG would learn the difference between them and strangers.

Eventually I brought him to school. Printed papers explaining what a service dog was and how to behave around him and I plastered them all over the place.

People barked at him, petted him, tried to grab his attention.

His harness was hot pink, patches and signs on it that very clearly said “DO NOT TOUCH” and shit like that.

Someone defaced one of the papers.

Going to school was already hard, I could barely leave the house, my mom had to accompany me to the school doors every morning and then a social worker at school would greet me there and take care of me throughout the day.

I had my own locker at a floor mostly unoccupied so I wouldn’t see other people much and my dog wouldn’t be too distracted.

But it was still to much and I ended up dropping out four months before graduation.

I couldn’t leave the house. I had Boom but he wasn’t perfect yet. People kept ruining him.

But eventually I managed to leave the house. Go to a shopping mall from time to time with him to just walk and have fun.

Too many times people came up to me to tell me the gear I used was hurting my dog. Too many times people came up to me to tell me that their own dog died. Too many people came up to him and pet him without even acknowledging my presence. Too many people telling me they wished they could bring their pets anywhere. Too many people disrespecting me and my service dog.

I stopped going out. I stopped being with my dog.

All this stress and trauma drove a wedge between my dog and I. I consider him my mother’s dog now.

I had to learn to handle myself alone when I went out. It took me years to learn to go out by myself. Only last year I started doing that.

My dog doesn’t live in my room with me anymore.

Having a service dog did still save my life. But those around me ruined that. They made it about themselves. They prioritized my dog over me. My dog that LOVES working. If you tell him “do you want to go to work” chances are he’ll get so excited he will attempt to do a backflip.

We used to have a deep bond. That bond is now broken. People took that from us.

So I guess what I’m trying to say is:

Let people and their service dogs alone.

You are not an exception.

You are not special.

You are disrupting the dog’s training and distracting it.

You are endangering a human life because you can’t resist petting the cute dog.

This isn’t about you. This is about a disabled person trying to simply live their lives.

You don’t know what you’re talking about, your advice is unsolicited and lacks understanding of what the life of a working dog is.

Just leave us alone.

#service dog #service dogs #ableism #disability

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

Okay folks: I’m working on a presentation about accessibility at zoos for an upcoming meeting.

One thing I’m touching on is the importance of supporting and welcoming real service dog teams. People sneaking their pets in / pretending ESAs are service dogs is becoming a real problem, and the general reflex I’m seeing in the industry is to just make it harder for anyone with a dog, so I want to ask the audience to think about that a little and consider other approaches to solving the problem.

I’d like to include a collage of photos of well-behaved service dogs at zoos and aquariums to help reinforce the point. Which means it’s photo request time! If you’ve got a photo of you / your service dog clearly at a zoo, aquarium, or other similar facility and would be willing to let me use it in this presentation, please chat/ask/email me (whyanimalsdothething @ gmail). I’m happy to block out human faces.

TIA. ❤️ 🦮🐕‍🦺

#service dogs #zoo accessibility #service dog #photo request #don’t worry about going and taking new ones or anything this slide deck is due in like two days oops

[hometoursandotherstuff]

#service dogs #other stuff #doggos

[themajorbarkana]

Here are a bunch of important facts about service dogs in the United States! Many people don’t know the real laws about these amazing dogs that help disabled people every day–so please share this far and wide to spread the word. 

Remember, all our product sales help support service dog handlers and organizations. We donate 10% of profits and include educational service dog fact cards with all US shipments. I’m also a disabled artist, and the best way to empower disabled people is to financially support them! 

💜(Due to health complications, I’ll be shutting down my shop on Dec 31st–so all decks and art prints will only be available until then. After that, I never plan on selling the Barkana deck again btw!) 💜

P.S. These service dog facts are specific to US laws, not worldwide. 

#service dogs #service dog #disability #disability advocacy #disabled artists #disabled artist #tarot deck #tarot cards #dog art

[tuptastic]

" Young disabled people are all faking it, there's nothing wrong with them, they just want the attention! "

Me, literally sobbing in union Station because I was so angry about having a mobility aid and not being able to do the same activities as my friends because of it and shaking because I kept getting stared at:

young disabled ppl are valid and if you think otherwise unfollow block whatever this is not the place for your bigotry.

#ikes rambles #disability #disabled #actually disabled #disabled pov #physically disabled #mentally disabled #emotionally done #mobility aid #cane user #rollator user #babe with a mobility aid #service dogs #young and disabled #young disabled #innapropriate sinus tachycardia #fibromyalgia #GAD #MDD #autism

[darkwood-sleddog]

Could you talk more on your thoughts on malinois as service dogs? I follow someone who has one so I'm curious as to your thoughts on it as someone who isn't familiar with the breed

I'm not ~in~ service dogs OR Malinois for that matter, but its been told to me by others that Malinois are quite sensitive to their handlers so are often not a good option depending on the type of service work that is needed. Malinois are also a high energy breed and need a lot of physical and mental stimulation. They can be challenging to average dog people (I wouldn't own one if you paid me even though I think they're cool). Both of these indicate to me a high potential for washing out of service work and generally, I'd hope that people don't recommend them to others for service animals.

For me it also comes down to this: a majority of modern malinois are bred to bite. Working malinois lines are often bite sports, personal protection, military, police dogs. To me, this type of dog directly conflicts with what a service dog should be when doing public access. In fact the AKC standard even states this regarding temperament: "He is naturally protective of his owner's person and property without being overly aggressive." (although this was recently rewritten in 2021 to omit this language so as to reflect the malinois temperament in "positive terms" (AKC malinois club words not mine)) and the FCI standard says this: "As well as its innate skill at guarding flocks, it also possesses the highly prized qualities of the best guard dog of property. Without any hesitation it is the stubborn and keen protector of its owner."

So somebody getting a Malinois for service work is probably going to want to go with a dog bred for show, but again, these dogs can be handler sensitive and even by their standard should not be "overly aggressive" when in IMO the correct amount of guardian behavior or people aggression a service dog, which is medical equipment, should display is ZERO. This is why golden retrievers and labradors make such popular service animals and this is why there are service dog programs that have been breeding dogs specifically for service work for generations (not to say there aren't dogs from these programs without issues, but that's another rabbit hole...)

I know a lot of "off-breeds" that are service animals and i think that's great when it happens successfully, but it's a lot different to have a unique individual who is up for the task, often an outlier in their breed, than to say a specific breed makes a good service animal. I know a few malamutes in service work, but that does not mean the breed as a whole makes good service animals and it does not mean I would ever recommend them specifically for service work (bc, hell, we have dog aggression in our breed standard!).

And regarding my last post, it's mostly the fact said service dog was cross trained in both service work AND personal protection which is a huge no-no and a big red flag to me. A service dog is medical equipment and a personal protection dog is a weapon. I've known service dogs that participate in bite sports, but that is different than being trained in personal protection. If an animal is going to be going into public access I expect them to be able to ignore other dogs AND other people, to be aggressive to neither, be non disruptive in public, and to focus on their actual, medically necessary job. But that's just my two cents.

#dogblr #faq #service dogs #malinois #it's mostly a yellow flag as a breed for this type of work #but a big red flag when people are getting them for BOTH PP and service work #why. would you want to do public access with a dog trained to be a weapon. #there are also so many badly bred malinois out there #ever since they became popular as a 'cool difficult dog' #so good temperaments are far and few

[bestbeest]

Service Dogs and Prong Collars

While I personally am a very hippy-dippy +R trainer, and do not use a prong on my dog, I wanted to make a post in response to the common notion that "no real service dog uses a prong collar." I've seen this sentiment several times in the last week or so and it's worth discussing, especially given how harmful 'fake-spotting' can be to service dog teams.

Let's start with some context about the prong, first. Unlike some training tools, it's not an inherently aversive tool, in that if no pressure is applied to it (i.e. the leash is not pulled at all), it doesn't pinch or poke. A certain level of force has to be applied for the prongs to pinch the dog. I am NOT saying that prongs are not typically used aversively or that they do not ever hurt the dog. What I'm saying is that the prong itself is just a magnifying tool, which magnifies small amounts of pressure from the leash by focusing them on very small specific points.

I also want to note that some professional service dog trainers do use prongs as aversive training tools, and while I am personally of the opinion that if your dog is service-dog quality, you should not NEED aversers to train it, other valid professional trainers in the field do use them to turn out well-bshaved effective service dogs. And of course, many unskilled owner-trainers rely on them to bridge the gap between their lack of training experience/skill and the extremely high behavioral standards required of service dogs (yes, you CAN very slowly train a dog not to sniff other people by reinforcing it each time it chooses not to and then fading out treats; you can also just do a quick leash pop when it leans over to sniff someone, and the dog will get the memo much more quickly and without the level of skill at timing needed). So this post is not intended to denigrate balanced trainers who use the prong as an averser, either.

That in mind, here are a few reasons that that service dog you just saw might be perfectly legitimate AND wearing a prong collar!

The dog was initially trained on a prong and now associates it with going into 'work mode.' Service dogs need some kind of cue to tell them when to be extremely professional and serious, and when they're okay to just be a regular old dog. My dog loves going up to people and saying hello, but obviously he can't be doing that kind of thing when he's on duty. Knowing that, I decided from the beginning to teach him that the signal was wearing a certain vest, and being 'naked' meant he could goof off. Other handlers use different signals, and if the dog was initially trained using a prong, that may be its de facto signal to get serious.

The handler's disability gives them hand strength issues and even a very small pull can cause them to drop the leash. In this case the prong provides noticeable pressure much earlier than a flat collar would and reminds the dog to be very gentle with their person.

The handler's disability gives them balance issues and even a very small pull can cause them to fall over. See above.

For some reason (cerebral palsy, wheelchair user, grip strength issues, etc), the handler needs a communication tool that can magnify very small movements of the leash into something the dog can notice and understand. I actually considered using a prong for this reason, so that I could just put a small amount of directional pressure on the leash to signal to my dog that we were turning one way or the other, but ended up going with a different method. Because the prong condenses the total amount of leash pressure into smaller, stronger points, instead of distributing it broadly the way a flat collar does, much smaller or subtler movements of the leash or the handler's hand can communicate a cue to the dog!

This is just one example of why it's so important not to assume that a service dog team is fake because they don't look the way we normally expect service dogs to look. There's an incredibly wide range of disabilities out there that affect people in a myriad of ways, and even more ways they navigate and manage those disabilities. Taking photos of people and posting them online, talking about them behind their back, or even harassing them about their legitimacy in person can be incredibly harmful and can lead to disabled people not getting the support and resources they need. Think about that the next time you see a service dog that doesn't meet your expectations!

#service dog #dogblr #service dogs #my textposts #education posts

[discord-emote-customs]

Could you please do a couple service dog emotes?? Sitting, and like Standing by Handler! Thank you sm

some service dogs ^^ sitting & standing by handler w/ & w/o text , & an alt service dog handler text !!

#custom emoji #custom emojis #custom emote #custom emotes #discord emoji #discord emojis #discord emote #discord emotes #free to use #service dog #service dogs #disability aids #standing by handler #handler #service dog handler

[cannibalhellhound]

I read @kazanskys-mitchell 's fic and I'm too gay and have free time ofc imma draw some shit.

(they posted it too <3)

Still bad at drawing old people (I don't think I've ever posted those and please let that be true) but they're gay so it's fine.

#fanart #tg #tgm #top gun #top gun fanart #top gun maverick #icemav #iceman x maverick #old icemav #old queer couple #service dogs #ao3 fanfic #ao3 fanart #HelloI'mHayden

[dog-gutz]

This Friday Molly got to meet a robot! The local junior high robotics team dedicated some time to come to the nursing home where I work so the patients could see their robot and learn about how it works! Me and my coworkers agreed it was a great opportunity for Molly to learn how to function around unexpected things, she did VERY well considering you don't see robots everyday. The team was nice enough to let me get a photo of the bot with Molly, and she thoroughly enjoyed watching it wander around the floor (I let her watch the bot for awhile since it was a new experience and expecting her to focus right away was just completely unrealistic). She was able to effectively task and listen to commands even while watching her environment which is exactly what I hoped for. Great job Molly!

#robotics #first robotics competition #first robotics #mobility service dog #psychiatric service dog #service dog in training #service dog #service dogs #sd #sdit #medical alert dog #pots #potsie #pots syndrome #actually ptsd #ptsd #complex ptsd #actually bipolar #actually bpd #mentally disabled #actually mentally ill #physically disabled #stem #mine

[pixierainbows]

People not with intellectual disability or cognitive disability are use that word again. Pixie too tired to educate… :( :( :( HURTING

Pixie still very upset person at art studio call Sunshine a Emotional support dog … not understand . Sunshine's vest have big letters what say service dog . is not not not same thing AT ALL . is very very intense training of dog to help with serious disability . is not not not Just so Pixie “ feel okay “ … Is very difficult training take long long time is to train service dog To help with Pixies serious and severe disability . is not at all same as Emotional support dog SO UPSET :(

#service dogs #emotional support animal #bad words #SO UPSET

[autisticdreamdrop]

this user wants / needs a service dog

#our userboxes #userbox #userboxes #service animals #service animal #service dog #service dogs #edit #edits #disabled userbox #disability userbox #disabled userboxes #disability userboxes

[hometoursandotherstuff]

#service dogs #dogs #working dogs #doggos #other stuff

[cryptcatz]

this is the peak of comfort. well-deserved after a long day of work!

#dogblr #dogs of tumblr #labrador retriever #service dogs #service dogblr #black labs #black labrador #labradors #personal #moose tag #cute dogs #animals of tumblr

[jellycatstuffies]

Autism Service Dog For Victor

This has nothing to do with Jellycats so feel free to not read: Now that I am starting university next week and never reached my goal to start the process of getting my own autism service dog I want to bring this back.

Some of you may remember my campaign to eventually be able to pay for my future service dog. I had planned to have the dog at least in training by the time I started university again, but as no charities or other support groups replied to my requests for help and I was and still am in financial trouble because of my parents not supporting me, I am forced to start school without a service dog. (this is complicated by the fact that one of my fellow students who I will have to see a lot actually has a service dog (albeit not an autism service dog) which is bittersweet and, quite honestly, heartbreaking for me)

Below is the link to my Go-Fund-Me campaign. All the money I receive through my Ko-fi will also go towards this goal.

Please consider donating or sharing on here and anywhere else you might think useful!

Thank you so much.

- Victor

PS: Due to starting university next week I may be less active on here but the queue will run as always!

#autism #autism service dog #service dog #actually autistic #autistic #autism spectrum #autistic experiences #autistic boy #service dogs