to bring dog in supermarket

[Name2change]

I have name changed as I know that most people will be inclined to think that this is ridiculous proposition as its societally unacceptable. I know the cognizant is not to bring them in because they could get out and get into things and cause damage or irritate people with allergens or for hygiene reasons etc etc but surely this applies to dogs who are on leads and being held and not ones in enclosed baby-looking prams that cant get out or get close enough to people to irritate them. I honestly don't see the issue with well behaved dogs who cant bother anyone especially when no one will even know they are there. I saw someone in the supermarket who'd done this a while ago, they bothered no one and ever since I've been thinking that this is something id like to do as I have a hidden disability that is made just that bit more comfortable with my dog just being there but I haven't done it as I'm too ashamed and would be anxious the whole time about being found out! I dont want any "YABU for getting her a pram", its a separate issue, she requires one and I'm not getting into a debate about it. AIBU to go for it or should I leave it well alone and forget about it?

Buying stuff in a supermarket you should be able to read the label. Saying that I’ve been caught out before when it’s not in the actual ingredients (where it must be bold) but sometimes under the ingredients and not in bold it might say may contain gluten or similar.

but in a restaurant they could be really useful. Dd has ordered gf options, told them she has coeliac disease and still been served the wrong option. 5 mins later she’s projectile vomiting and is ill for a week. Plus sometimes you get a gf option but there’s been cross contamination in the kitchen, so they’ve touched bread, then prepped her food, or used butter which has previously had a knife in which has touched bread. It makes her just as sick. If I had a spare 20k I’d get her a dog.

@QuebecBagnet

ok I totally understand - again, thank you for explaining

I’m still of the opinion that there needs to be a register/database of assistance dogs that have been qualified and observed/tested by one governing body and have documentation to prove their training. The law and advice is a very ‘grey area’.

Too many people are claiming their dogs are assistance dogs when they’re not. Staff are scared to challenge people wandering onto premises who claim to have an assistance dog when they clearly are untrained pets.

Here’s a link to a document which is widely circulated but the information contained in it is open to interpretation at least. www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/assistance-dogs-a-guide-for-all-businesses.pdf

What they don’t mention is assistance dogs in training legally are not permitted access yet some people put an ‘in training’ harness on their pets to gain access.

An emotional support dog is NOT the same as an assistance dog.

I won’t go into details but we had someone in our premises a few weeks ago trying to gain entry carrying a chihuahua, claiming the dog picked up groceries for them. I refused access and I’m happy to pay money to defend our decision in court if they choose to go down that route. People like this make a complete mockery of those that have assistance dogs who do act as an auxiliary aid and are fully trained to do so.

I totally agree that SOME assistance dogs are fully trained, however others aren’t. I also don’t agree with owner trained assistance dogs unless they are in partnership with one of the charities who are qualified to assess and train these dogs. I will say again there needs to be a database or register for these dogs and the law need to be changed that working dogs must wear a tabard with perhaps a unique number that businesses can check if they’re registered or not.

Taking a dog into a shop in pram for no reason is ludicrous. I have dogs but wouldn’t dream of wandering into Tesco with them.

You only need to go onto FB pages with people who claim to own assistance dogs where they’re asking for advice on how to train them after buying a puppy. The posts and comments are infuriating! On these pages you also get Etsy or eBay sellers making tabards/lead slips etc for these untrained dogs which makes the public think they have a right to be there when in fact they don’t.

What if someone is or might be allergic to dogs?
Refusing to allow access to people with assistance dogs because other people ‘might’ be allergic to dogs is likely to be unlawful disability discrimination. This is because the Equality Act 2010 states that service providers must make reasonable adjustments to policies for disabled people. This includes amending ‘no dogs’ and ‘no pets’ policies to allow access for assistance dogs.
If there is an identifiable person with an allergy to dogs then employers and service providers should take reasonable steps to ensure that person has minimal or no contact with dogs; reasonable steps are unlikely to include banning all assistance dogs.

^^ This part of the document is a complete joke. Page 13. What about the rights of people who have allergies to dogs?

You can be 'of the opinion' however that is not what the Equality Act states, and since the UK can't even regulate dog training as a whole there is zero chance they will manage to regulate, run a database and certify assistance dogs.

None of the ADUK charities will assess externally trained dogs AFAIK (if thats changed its very recent). That would mean everyone in the UK would have to wait for an ADUK charity dog - a wait of years, if you qualify at all (and qualification is not based entirely on 'need', theres things like 'do you have another dog' or where you live in relation to the charity base too). That would mean many people would not get a dog.

Dogs 'in training' wear 'in training' vests for a variety of reasons - one is that it should stop people approaching the dog and questioning the person as to what the dog is doing there, wanting to pet the dog etc.

Anyone legitimately training an AD knows that an IT dog does not have the same rights to access that a trained dog has.

Refusing access is pretty sticky territory - but I would suggest you ask what the dog does for the handler. Not a demonstration and certainly not what their disability IS.. but what the dog does. They don't actually have to tell you, but it should be a reasonable question, as long as its asked politely and not thrown out as an aggressive challenge of course.

I also would not buy that a Chihuahua provides the task of picking up grocery items.

If they'd said medical detection, yeah, thats believable.

I don't know any AD handler who would object to providing a simple explanation of what their dog does if asked politely.

'might be' should definitely not trump 'definitely is disabled and requires an AD'.

I can't imagine why you would think otherwise.

If someone IS definitely allergic, then thats covered by the 'reasonable steps' part - that might mean seating them far away from the dog, ensuring they don't come into contact with something the dog touched...

Typically dog allergies are not life threatening and not hugely severe if you don't touch the dog (they're typically not life threatening even if you do but some people can have some pretty unpleasant symptoms that would ruin their day or several days!) but I guess being trapped in a confined space would be an issue.

Reasonable steps to meet everyones needs and not discriminate will obviously vary depending on the situation - someone with a mild allergy who just gets a sniffle if they hug a hairy dog is not reasonably going to have an assistance dog handler kicked out of a restaurant - they have the choice to move further away, sit outside, leave, put up with the sniffles, take an antihistamine.

Someone with a really severe allergy may not have those choices and then it may come down to 'who was here first' situation.

Most people with truly life threatening allergies have come to accept that the world is filled with risk and it is up to them to navigate that risk - and a really serious dog allergy triggered by the presence of a dog at some distance is as easily triggered by dog hair on someones jumper as it is by an assistance dog the other side of the room. You can't remove everyone who MAY have touched a dog in the last 24 hours.

The allergy issue is brought up frequently in threads like this, but in reality I have never heard of a genuine case of someone seriously suffering as a result of the presence of an assistance dog (I have heard a few blatant liars who tried to pretend they were allergic and then suffered the consquences of those lies. All taxi drivers trying to justify not carrying assistance dogs.)

I don't think its a sufficiently big deal in real life, to warrant banning assistance dogs - we haven't banned other allergens that other people may carry around with them, peanuts in particular can cause death without touching a peanut directly!

Guide dogs are incredibly trained.
Little fluffy in a pam may panic and need to come out in the jam aisle.
I don't agree with dogs (not guide dogs) in supermarkets, because if fluffy can go, what's stopping a bigger dog on a lead, where does it end?
I don't mind dogs, but I feel very uncomfortable with them in an indoor/crowded setting with children.

YABU.
Where do we draw the line.
This dog is your pet, not a recognised ‘support’ animal.

Leave it at home, or get an online delivery.

Someone with a really severe allergy may not have those choices and then it may come down to 'who was here first' situation

Only if the business wants to risk prosecution. It's actually illegal to refuse admission to a guide dog.

The only exceptions are certain areas in hospitals (and there is guidance for what facilities must be provided for the dog whist it waits at the nearest convenient point to where the person is being treated) and in a few places, like some wildlife reserves.

Interestingly our untrained pet dog will alert Dd to a POTS attack. Dd does not take the dog out anywhere with her and I’d be nervous about her being challenged and lack of paperwork/proof about what the dog can do.

I mean she’s a well trained (general behaviour) dog, so she will walk to heel off lead, even through crowds, she won’t bark at other dogs, she won’t start a fight, etc. But if she’s bored she might be sniffing about at stuff and fidgeting and looking around in a way I don’t see guide dogs doing so I could absolutely forsee someone saying it’s not a trained assistance dog and kicking off. So I wouldn’t want to risk it.

The sooner we ban dogs in prams and 'emotional support' wankers the better.

How exactly is someone pushing an elderly or infirm dog in a dog buggy causing you or anyone else such problems that you feel they should be banned. How ridiculous.

Your daught is exactly the sort of person who would benefit from an assistance dog and could potentially (or between you) owner train that dog. Your dog (from what you say, obviously I've not seen video or in person) appears well suited to public access work. If you would like to, even if its never for public access, PM me and ill put you in touch with suitable organisations that can help/oversee training.

Fidgeting and or having the odd sniff or looking around is ok as long as it doesn't involve touching stuff/people/soliciting attention and as long as she's not so distracted she would fail to alert. Training could improve this too. They're not robots though, they're allowed to take in their environment in fact, they need to do so to do their job much of the time.

Guide dogs are typically not looking around because they're actively guiding, its just a different job.

You also don't need to 'need' an assistance dog ALL of the time or be unable to live life without one to have one, just as someone may need a wheelchair sometimes but not others. They simply need to mitigate your disability by performing a task.

Unfortunately all assistance dog handlers worry about being challenged and this is why discussing the issues is so important - there IS no paperwork one should have, anyone asking for such has failed to understand the law - but that doesn't make it any easier to deal with it if challenged, particularly if challenged rudely or aggressively as sadly many people are.

My friend was challenged recently with her mini poodle, she was using sticks that day not her chair, we suspect it would have been different otherwise - mainly because the shop owner didn't think a mini poodle could be an assistance dog (he incorrectly thought they were a/always labradors/retrievers and b/guide dogs for blind). He had also experienced fakers trying to bring in an aggressive and unsocialised staffy x and passing it off as an assistance dog, which understandably made him wary. He has now been educated and understands AD handler rights AND his own rights (he had no idea he could ask an AD handler to leave if the dog was proving to be out of control!).

My friend now carries some little cards that sit in a pocket on her dogs vest, credit card sized, that explain what her dog does and why (in fairly simple terms) and the law and the shop owner in question thought that very helpful and hopes it will catch on in their local area.

So according to WiddlinDiddlin anyone who is allergic to dogs, scared of dogs or just thinks they are unhygienic, is to be ushered into a separate part of the shop? So dogs, any dog, can have full reign of the whole building

This is the completely fucking bonkers world we are in now.

Wouldn’t asked this on mumsnet-it’s full of dog haters many of whom would ban dogs from the local park

It's not about hating dogs. Its about public safety and hygiene.

That's a bit of an OTT response. I like dogs, but IMO a supermarket is not a place to take a dog - guide dogs excepted of course.

Wouldn't ask this on mumsnet-it's full of dog haters

I'm not a dog hater.

I love my dog. She's extremely well behaved, but I don't think she, or any other dog who isn't a trained guide/assistance dog, belongs in a supermarket.

This idea of 'emotional support dogs' being allowed in supermarkets opens it up to absolutely everyone, including all those completely untrained, out of control dogs we all come across from time to time as there's absolutely no way of regulating it.

Ah yes, because that is EXACTLY what I said isn't it.

Oh no, wait, I said Assistance Dogs and pretty clearly spelled out what that means.

But you think a disabled person who needs a dog to do various tasks should NOT be permitted to do that just in case there might be someone there who gets the sniffles or is scared of dogs or thinks dogs are dirty?

This is the type of person I mentioned upthread. They shout about the equality act and try and twist it to suit themselves as the wording of the act is open to interpretation.

As I also said upthread all assistance dogs should be registered, have documented training and aren’t “owner trained”. Anyone can claim to have trained a dog to assist them then buy a tabard online. Lots of people also buy cards from Etsy or eBay quoting the “law” which isn’t actually “law” they’re cards made up to make premises owners bend to their demands to allow their “assistance” dog into premises.

What I haven’t mentioned so far on this thread is that I have a fully trained assistance dog (as well as my retired assistance dog) ☺️ I’m deaf. Does my disability trump the needs of others? Of course it doesn’t. I have always been very aware of peoples allergies, that people may be scared of dogs and hygiene issues. This is why I tell supermarket or shop staff that I’m deaf when I go into a shop without my dog. The reason I do this is I can’t hear if a fire alarm goes off. It’s not like my house where I have my dog to alert me.

What we have on this thread is someone who thinks they’ve trained their dog to be an assistance dog, just like hundreds of others out there. A highly trained assistance dog certainly doesn’t “fidget”. An assistance dog is a disability aid and if people don’t need to have the dog 100% of the time then, like me, they can function without it or plan their days. It’s not difficult to negotiate the world without your dog at your side. I obviously don’t include the wonderful guide dogs in this post as they need to be with their owner 100% of the time.

If people need aid in shops then shop staff are always more than happy to help if you ask.

@WiddlinDiddlin you are the perfect example of someone who has had a pet and passes it of as an assistance dog to the detriment of others who rely on expertly trained assistance dogs.

@Flaxmeadow I only quoted your post as it resonated with me. I agree it’s fucking bonkers that some owner trained “assistance dogs” are taking priority over people when there really is no need. Well, except for barking mad owners of “owner trained” assistance dogs who really aren’t trained at all!

@QuebecBagnet please do not listen to this advice, it’s really quite dangerous tbh. Assistance dogs are highly trained and train for many years. It’s really unfair on a dog to try and train it from being a pet. Assistance dogs are not pets, they’re disability aids and have a job to do. They’re completely different from pets.

If you contact Assistance Dogs UK they can put you in touch with a reputable charity or organisation who can offer advice on a dog for your daughter although the waiting lists are very long at the moment.

Hi, OP. I can understand wanting to have your dog with you, but I'd ask you to consider the needs of people with trained service dogs.

While legally they should be able to enter all shops etc, they still encounter barriers and prejudice from those who don't understand their legal right to be accompanied by their dog, or the valuable independence the dogs give them.

For that reason, unless your dog is an actual fully trained service dog, I would suggest it's better not to bring it into the shop. This right needs to be protected for those who have the greatest need and have dogs that are professionally trained for these situations.

It's wonderful that you have a canine companion and you gain confidence from it. I'm sure you'll have other opportunities to enjoy time with it, and as someone else posted, it may be worth exploring specific therapies to help you manage your anxiety around shopping.

It isn't dangerous at all, what on earth are you on about?

I really don't see whats dangerous about offering to put someone in touch with suitable organisations if thats what they want to do.

Why shouldn't a dog have a wee look around if they're lying under a table. When I say 'fidget' and 'have a look about' I mean occasionally, and highly dependent on what task the dog is doing. I think it was pretty clear I do not mean dogs sniffing people, dragging handlers around, not paying attention to handlers etc - just simply they do not HAVE to be robots.

My dog is actually semi-retired, because he had SRMA and dodgy joints, which don't currently affect him but eventually will and whilst he is happy to indicate hypos, I wouldn't make him walk far, lie on hard surfaces etc. So no, I am not 'one of those fakers' as you so delightfully put it.

Despite being a qualified trainer myself, I still had qualified colleagues assess him for public access whilst he was working.

As for 'many years training' - you do make me laugh. Up until adolescence, charity supplied dogs are with puppy walkers, under going the same training a well trained pet dog should have. Some charities then provide 4 to 8 months actual training back at their centre on top of that. Most start work around 2 - do the maths eh!
That is in no way 'many years of training'.

Some pet dogs can make an assistance dog - and I very much disagree that a pet dog cannot be an assistance dog, they can, and an assistance dog that is not also a member of the family is often an assistance dog whose needs are not put first, who is used as a tool and suffers.

Before you claim that never happens... it absolutely does - we've ALL seen dogs yanked around, dogs worked in the heat, dogs kept out working when they're knackered and dogs taken to venues they should not be at simply because it is the owners 'right' to do so.

Fakers are pretty easy to spot - their dogs don't do tasks and don't behave well in public.

If someone IS a 'faker' and yet their dog behaves impeccably in public and carries out tasks... I really don't care, the chances of that happening on a scale large enough to cause problems is pretty much nil.

Stop gate-keeping assistance dogs for those lucky enough to get one from an ADUK charity - you have no idea how lucky you are, whereas I, working as a disabled dog trainer in the industry, actually have a clue here.