For being annoyed I was asked to stand on a bus because of dog allergies?

[anywayhereswonderwall]

I went to visit a friend in London today and I took my dog. It's worth noting she is a mini poodle, and hypoallergenic, and well behaved. You can barely even tell she's there. I got on the bus as part of my journey. It was the middle of the day so there were a few empty seats (but not loads).

I got on and sat down, and the woman a few rows behind me said 'can you move , I have a dog allergy'. I apologised and moved a few rows forwards, the furthest forwards I could go and still get a seat.

She then shouted forwards 'not far enough, you're going have to stand at the front'.

I was confused, but did it. I spent the rest of the 35 minute journey standing right at the front of the bus while the woman was 3/4 of the way along, sitting.

I did what she said for the journey, but when I got off I felt annoyed and I'm not sure if I'm justified.

“I imagine fourteen houses and screaming child had the run of the place, I mean would you want to stay there and listen to that. Nope”

Exactly!

I don’t believe the cafe owner would have asked two paying customers to leave because one entitled customer wanted to throw her weight around. How many other paying customers, with dogs, would the owner have had to turn away from her dog friendly establishment, while waiting for entitled, gobby person to finish her food and get out?

The owner throwing dog owners out of a dog friendly establishment wouldn’t have happened.

It would have made more sense to ask the parent of the screaming child to leave. Because that’s the customer that was causing the problem.

Why would a parent make their dog allergic child stay in a place they found out was dog friendly anyway? Fur and dander doesn’t leave the place when the dog does. How many dogs had sat at the posters table the day before, and left their dander behind?

I don’t believe a word of it!

OP YWNBU to move. However, you realised you didn’t need to. Next time remember the person with the problem should be the one to move. Someone else’s allergy isn’t your problem.

Dogs are allowed on buses. Anyone with a dog allergy, that chooses to travel by bus, knows there will be a chance that there will be dogs on the bus. They have a choice whether to travel by bus or not. If the allergy was life threatening they would choose alternative transport.

Yes. There’s another thread on that very subject, which got quite heated because people couldn’t see why it was unacceptable for the waiter in a restaurant to ask very publicly, what the persons’ disability was and why they needed the dog. The law around documentation is spotty but it’s possible to get a trained and accredited assistance dog, or to train your own to your particular needs and then get an assessment and documentation from various recognised sources. So I suppose if it’s necessary for a person to have an assistance dog and the reason isn’t immediately obvious, then it’s worth getting the identification to avoid problems. It’s a fairly recent thing, so I would think that eventually some system of identification similar to guide dogs will be introduced.

It still isn't a first-come-first-served issue.

The cafe has to make reasonable adjustments. But what those adjustments are will partly depend on what is practical.

If there are two rooms available, a reasonable adjustment might be that one party sits in another room.

That post was to @QuintanaRoo and her gluten detecting super dog.

His mother is responsible for him though, and her language is entitled and unpleasant.

And in my case no, his need does not trump mine. He doesn’t have to sit near me. I won’t invade his space, but i absolutely will not tolerate being refused access to a cafe I am perfectly entitled to visit. And if I was, I would put a review on trip adviser to the effect they had refused a guide dog without discussion and I would make sure none of my friends and family ever went there again.

I equally wouldn’t expect the child having a meltdown to be asked to leave and would be equally outraged at that. But the cafe would be big enough for both of us.

That’s quite funny about checking privilege. It was a dog-friendly cafe; you could have gone somewhere else.

That would be ridiculous behaviour I agree, but people often behave badly and ridiculously.
Not my child or my story though...

I don't have a disabled child, and i can see the poster should have done things differently, i.e., checked first/asked nicely. It's just the awful words being used towards the disabled child that's horrible.

As I've said on the thread, I assess the situation regarding my allergies as it depends on the threshold dose. A dog sat in the corner is likely to be fine, I double dose and pray my face doesn't look like an uncarved pumpkin when I leave. If there's lots of dogs or I want to be there for a while, the risk is greater, so I don't go there. It gets harder, though, especially if places are busy and more and more places have dogs, and the places where dogs aren't allowed are full. Sometimes it's just not worth going anywhere as my immune system takes such a hit I'm unwell for days. Makes me tired just thinking of it.

But lots of people with mobility issues have to take a different approach to a situation due to their issues. If you get a train, you phone ahead for the ramp and check stations etc. This is expected as most people with mobility issues know. And, yes, this service could absolutely be improved and can often be frustrating and disorganised on the part of the train staff, but my point is with mobility issues you as the person or parent do have to make adjustments to your approach in order to access equality. On a plane, you wait until the end for a wheelchair transfer and have to organise it yourself, when you visit a theme park like Disneyland you need to bring your blue badge to show the desk to get an access card to wear and use the rides’ exits to get on, if attending the theatre or a cinema you usually phone ahead to check seating etc. You still take responsibility for the adjustments and may choose not to attend something that doesn’t fit your own requirements.

Obviously, it doesn’t always work out the way you planned and it’s much better to be kind and understanding of someone else’s situation than to be belligerent or ignore it. However, it’s not hugely different checking a cafe to all the adjustments someone with mobility issues has to make. It isn’t a black and white situation just because someone is unable to walk, they have to do quite a bit to get access to their equal rights. I think that’s what posters mean by responsibility - not that they’d ignore all situations where someone with a disability might be in trouble (though that happens plenty of times, there are also plenty of times people are kind and helpful).

@Scalottia That makes sense. I don’t currently have a dog, but have had one and hope to again when the time is appropriate, so I suppose it feels logical to me that if you’ve driven a way to a specific walk, you’d prefer to have a place to refresh yourself before driving home with a loo available etc. However, I can see why others wouldn’t feel that.

@PickoftheMix apologies, cross posted with you. I appreciate why you’d dislike the language etc.

Because gradually most casual eating places seem to be becoming 'dog-friendly', either because they like dogs, or they realise there's a lot of money to be made by encouraging the owners in - especially since the huge surge in dog ownership.

But that shouldn't mean the dog has superior rights to humans in such a place - there should be room for negotiation on all sides. Choosing a cafe is not just about dogs, it's a mix of convenience, cost, opening hours, menu, views, interior, atmosphere and so on. If you're allergic or phobic to dogs and your favourite cafe turns 'dog - friendly', I can see why you might still want to go occasionally, and perhaps if already seated, you might politely ask for some space between a child and a dog while you finish the food and drink you've purchased.

Most people can explain and negotiate reasonably, especially when there's a disabled child involved and it's a minor inconvenience for a few minutes.

OP no you weren’t remotely unreasonable.

Fourteenhouses I truly sympathise for your situation. DS1 has fairly severe autism and complex disabilities and I totally understand what you’ve said about the dread and distress of autistic meltdowns and being unable to move your child during a meltdown.

However the entitlement you’ve shown on this thread is quite extraordinary. Please do take on board what others have said. It was undoubtedly up to you to ask if the cafe was dog friendly. The people with dogs shouldn’t have had to leave. As for referring to PPs’ comments about guide dogs as ‘hilarious’ and PPs making up scenarios, please do think about this. Your child’s rights really wouldn’t ‘trump’ those of people with guide dogs and I think a lot of posters on this thread are aghast that you believe(d) that they would.

But what you did, and what you’re still doing, was/is wrong and illegal. The person with the assistance dog would have been entitled to reasonable adjustment under the Equality Act 2010 and should have been accommodated on the dates they wanted in one of the other cottages. Reserving one cottage and turning others away if it’s already booked is illegal. That’s probably the reason for the negative reviews - the person with the assistance dog would rightly see that as being unlawfully excluded because of their disability. You were lucky to escape prosecution, and I’d be revisiting your booking policy if I were you.

You actually tried to kick someone else out of a cafe and argued with the owner when she wouldn't do it?

They did have just as much right to be there!

I've been on the bus with dogs loads of times and men tend to not bother moving their dog out of the walk way and women do. If it's good for at least 50 different men to exert theor right to sit on the bus with their dog then ots alright for women.

But then how can she accommodate me? I have severe allergies and can't stay in a cottage that has had dogs in it. I want to rent her cottage and she has open cottages but they have all had dog guests. Then I am excluded from the use of her cottages.

Presumably by actually making some effort and cleaning her properties properly.

Refusing assistance dogs in certain parts of her establishment is clearly just a cop-out for shit standards. If the cottages were cleaned properly between guests then allergies wouldn’t be a problem.

I know. I keep mulling this over. Why the refusal to believe this. Why would I make it up? Bizarre.

All I can assume is people have paid a premium in the belief their dog really was hypoallergenic and can't cope with anything that points against that

This is what the RNIB have to say on allergies to dogs and fear of dogs:

"Allergies and fear of dogs are not valid reasons for denying access or refusing service to guide dog owners and other assistance dogs. Management procedures can be put in place in hotels and guest houses to ensure that customers who have an allergy to dogs are not allocated accommodation that has previously been used by guide dog owners. When a person who is allergic to dogs has to share the same room with a guide dog owner e.g. in a classroom, they both should be accommodated by assigning them if possible (depending
on the activity or size of the room) to different areas within the room or a different room within the facility."

I voted YABU because you did what a stranger with no authority over you whatsoever told you to do. Are you usually such a walkover in life? Why would you do what someone tells you to?

Allergies are also a disability under the equalities act. It's perfectly reasonable to strike a balance between different disabilities. Particularly given that an allergic reaction in a remote cottage could be life threatening.

Oh if only! For someone with severe allergies that are actually a disability as in my case, cleaning does nothing. I can't stay in places that have had pets. I had to move apartments because a previous tenant had had a dog even after the apartment had been thoroughly cleaned multiple times. The tenant with the dog had moved out 6 months before I moved in and since a petless friend had lived in the apartment for a few months before I moved in, the landlord had told me there hadn't been animals. Without hours of moving in, I knew there had been animals in the apartment. Thankfully the landlord had other apartments and I was able to move quickly to a different one.

An allergy can also be considered under the Equality Act 2010. If it is sufficiently serious and impacts negatively on day to day activities, it is capable of being a disability.

I travelled in Europe with my dog, there are special carriages in soem countries for travelling with pets. Great idea, for everyone.

Caledonian MacBrayne the Scottish ferry company also have special seating areas for those travelling with dogs.

I refuse to believe it because why would anyone care if you or your child didn’t stroke their dog?

But there is a clear motive for making up stories like this.