What is task shopping: Going through/asking for lists of tasks to train your dog/say you trained your dog so they can pass as a service dog/so you can make your SD team seem more 'legitimate'.
What is NOT task shopping: Searching for/going through lists of tasks that could help with one or more of your specific symptoms or asking for help with determining what task or behavior a dog could do to help mitigate a symptom of your disability.
Encouraging people to just train their SDiTs to their specific needs and situation is great! Definitely do that! But please, when a SDiT handler asks you something like this: How do I/What task do I train to help me with 'x symptom/problem'?
Please, don't respond by saying something like: Task shopping is bad! Don't do that! You need to go buy a program dog/pay for a service dog specific trainer!
Not everyone can afford an expensive program dog or a specialized SD trainer, so this isn't very constructive and can be pretty defeating. If you don't want to answer someone when they ask you this type of question, just say so! Or ignore them if you want, you don't have to answer people's questions!
Someone asking for help to determine what a dog can be taught, or help determining what task might actually be helpful for a symptom is not at all the same as someone trying to legitimize a team with extra tasks or pass their pet with easier to train tasks,
I think we service dog handlers should stop being butts to each other and try to make sure everyone who is attempting to train their own service dog has the knowledge to succeed along with those of us who already have!
People, please reach out for help learning about dogs and service dogs if you need to! Don't worry about being accused of task shopping! Not everyone knows all a dog can be taught before they start trying to teach one and not everyone can think of what task or behavior might actually be helpful for their symptom, either!
