I donāt think Iāve 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 wasnāt 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 āDO NOT TOUCHā 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 wouldnāt see other people much and my dog wouldnāt be too distracted.
But it was still to much and I ended up dropping out four months before graduation.
I couldnāt leave the house. I had Boom but he wasnāt 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 motherās 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 doesnāt 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 ādo you want to go to workā chances are heāll 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 Iām trying to say is:
Let people and their service dogs alone.
You are not an exception.
You are disrupting the dogās training and distracting it.
You are endangering a human life because you canāt resist petting the cute dog.
This isnāt about you. This is about a disabled person trying to simply live their lives.
You donāt know what youāre talking about, your advice is unsolicited and lacks understanding of what the life of a working dog is.
