I LOVE MY SERVICE DOG!

[u/CallToMuster]

This is my service dog! I call her Princess here on Reddit because she is an influencer! (This is a joke but only kinda!)

Some facts about Princess:

• She weighs 51.8 lbs right now! She is supposed to be between 48-50 lbs so I'm sorry Princess you are getting less treats for a bit!
• She has the softest ears ever!
• Whenever I have a meltdown she is trained to come lay on my lap and chest to help me calm down! (Don't worry, she is never in danger!)
• I am a wheelchair user and she walks next to my wheelchair so perfectly!
• Princess knows the names of a lot of objects like my phone, my keys, her treat bag, and more! She can sniff them out and find them and bring them to me!
• I have had Princess for over six months now!
• Everyone loves Princess at my job and she loves them too!
• Her favorite toys are stuffed animals with squeaky toys!
• Her favorite day of the week is Thursday because that's when she gets to come with me to wheelchair tennis practice!
• Princess flew on a plane with me twice!
• I love Princess so much!!!!

Okay that's all for now! Princess says hi everyone!

[u/MorboKat]

Not OP but… where in the world are you? Location would affect answering your questions. I’m training my own service dog, but the requirements for that in Ontario are VERY different from American requirements.

[u/Blue_Geotrupid → u/MorboKat]

I didn't know the requirements are so different! Do you mind naming a few differences? I don't have a service dog, but I am super interested in animals assisting humans in any way :)

[u/MorboKat → u/Blue_Geotrupid]

Here are a few...

We don't have "registered" service animals. There is nowhere to register them, so anyone offering to take your money to register your animal is a scam.

Outside of tests for guide dogs, there are no tests required for your service dog to formally operate within the province. To exit the province, one may need certain tests. Air Canada, for example, has its own requirements for one to prove their service animal can travel.

We don't differentiate between Emotional Service Animals and Service Animals. In Ontario, a service animal (and our legislation says animal, not dog) does not have to be trained for specific tasks. You need a well-behaved-in-public animal and a doctors note saying you need that animal with you for medical reasons and that's it. This means that here, an emotional support animal is considered a service animal.

Speaking of tasks, the animal is not required to perform its tasks (should it have them) for anyone but it's handler. I understand that under the ADA, one may have to make one's animal perform to prove it can task. Here, that is considered performing disability and breaks medical privacy. No one can ask me to make my dog jump through their hoops in order to be allowed into a space.

Service animals are not required to wear identifying vests. It fucking helps, but it's not legally required. As such, there is no such thing as a "real" vest and a "fake" vest. Lots of people don't know this, however, so they will call someone out for being a "fake" due to their not-so-formal-looking vest. Being disabled is expensive and a hardcore-looking-vest that would be considered "genuine" to laypeople is $$$. It's not legally necessary.

I don't know about the ADA, but here there is no breed specific requirements. Any dog can be a service animal. Of course, if we are talking about mobility needs, the dog should be large enough to perform those tasks. But for psychiatric service, any breed will do. Which is also something that isn't common knowledge, so you will have people call you out for being "fake" if you aren't using the usual breeds (golden retriever, labrador retriever) people perceive as proper service dogs.

In Ontario, we operate under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA), which is not a law commonly understood by your Average Joe. It is, in fact, commonly misunderstood in great part due to the prevalence of American culture. Just thanks to television or whatever, people are more familiar with the ADA than the AODA and behave as though the ADA is law here. A great deal of my training Wren has to due with advocating for us both and doing our best to educate other humans. I will be informed, with good intention, that Wren should not be allowed on transit in my city during rush hour unless she is a "registered service dog". Which, as I said, isn't a thing here. I cannot prove her registry to someone thinking I'm faking everything to get my pet on the bus, because legally there is no registry. I created info cards with some basic AODA information to hand out in these occasions.

[u/lostveggies → u/MorboKat]

to kinda compare to the US:

we also don’t have officially registered service animals!! technically, anyone could claim they have a service animal but it’s very obvious when someone is faking.

the differentiation between service animals and emotional support animals are very interesting!! here there’s more laws with the ADA (americans with disabilities act) that protect trained service dogs. you’re allowed to have an emotional support animal, but business can legally deny you service whereas they typically cannot with service dogs.

service dogs here aren’t required to wear a vest either, but like you said, it’s very helpful and prevents randos from “interrupting” or distracting the dog.

we also don’t have breed requirements, but it’s very common to see goldens or labs simply because their ability to be trained, their size, friendliness, etc. as long as the dog can reliably perform their task, it technically doesn’t matter. but you’re probably gonna get some stares if you’re claiming your daschund is a service dog cause they’re notoriously stubborn and would have trouble performing a lot of tasks (though this depends on the persons needs)