Friend lied about having emotional support dog.

[Otins]

A friend of mine has a dog. He is a pet. She loves him, but he is a pet. Nothing else.

She recently went on a day out to a stately home. Dogs not allowed inside.

She told them it was an emotional support dog and they let him in.

She thought it was really funny and clever to do this.

I told her that I didn’t approve - and we moved on, and it was fine.

But the more I think about it, the more it winds me up.

For transparency, I am not a dog lover (not a dog hater either) and the sense of entitlement I see from many dog owners annoys me, and I think dogs being allowed (emotional support or not) in cafes and shops is inappropriate.

Whatever happened to leaving your dog at home to snooze on the sofa while you went out?

AIBU

Yes - how does this affect you if she takes her dog into places when you’re not there.

No - she was wrong to deceive the stately home in this way.

my son has asd and we have to show proof of disability for lots of things, which is usually done with dla or access card, places don’t just have to take peoples word for it in the uk. We don’t have a dog so the whole assistance dog isn’t an issue for us

This is a serious issue to anyone allergic. My DS is severely allergic to dogs and as a result we can only go to dog-free places. As more and more places allow dogs this has meant fewer places we can go; now there’s dog owners who’ll try to take their dogs into the dog free ones as well. It infuriates me and makes me so sad for him.

I think you're overthinking

My mental health "issue" is just as medically valid as diabetes, visual impairment. I have various syndromes and disorders that mean that my Assistance Dog is vital to my wellbeing. Please do not try to imply that mental health is any lesser disability than another.

I agree but to get a Blue Badge or registered Guide dog/Hearing dog I am assuming that a Medical professional has to agree so it should be the same.
People cant just announce they have an assistance dog and expect it to be allowed everywhere

I agree lots of organisations train dogs to be assistance dogs nobody needs to say their family pooch is their assistance dog.

My husband wears bilateral hearing aids. Obviously he wears them for fun, or you would think so the way he is treated. 90% of loop systems don’t work and/or no member of staff has a clue how to work them. My husband lip reads slightly but that depends a lot on the person who is talking being deaf aware and not ignorant.
I could continue to list the difficulties he has from background music in shops to accents and female voices, but this would be a long post.
He takes me along but how many times have people talked over me and then been told to deal with me! It gets stupid.
One day we were having a meal with my brother in law, our dog at the time had severe separation anxiety and in his lifetime ripped apart three sofas, rather than …what was it ‘snoozing on them’ at home, drugs didn’t work.
Thank you for that snippet, it had to be from a non dog person!
We were staying overnight at a hotel near my brother in law, whose accommodation came with his job.
Yes, guilty as charged we said our dog was an assistance dog as there were no dog friendly hotels anywhere nearby.
However, the way my husband was treated, with something visibly indicating that he has a disability was astounding. We had advised the hotel and loops worked, staff spoke to my husband directly, music was quietened. It was like staying at deaf aware heaven.
I have called hotels before and mentioned that my husband has severe hearing loss and I can almost hear it going right over their heads to the oblivion of ‘yeah, yeah, yeah’ just as I say it and know full well that the loop system won’t work on arrival.

Dogs aren't allowed in most shops and cafes so if you don't like dogs, don't go in ones thT are. It's difficult to find time to walk a dog wice a day every day so if you can incorporate them into your lives somewhat it's much nicer for you and the dog. I agree she shouldn't have lied about it being a support dog though.

I keep telling my dog he's meant to be my emotional support dog but he's made it clear he doesn't want the job 🤣🤣🤣🤣

So because some places don't make the appropriate allowances for your H's disabilty you think its Ok to lie about your badly trained dog?
It is 2 entirely different things.
It is NOT ok for anywhere to treat your DH like that but its NOT ok for you to pretend to have an assistance dog.

And my ‘problem’ husband? Is he mine to deal with and no one else’s issue?
Should I take ownership of his severe hearing loss and find coping strategies when we are out that avoid other people having to deal with something as socially awkward as someone that has problems hearing them speak, but doesn’t want to wear a badge saying ‘deaf not stupid!’
Should we stay at home and snooze on the couch?
Or should the rest of the us have more empathy and awareness for invisible conditions, such as hearing loss (I have epilepsy and tinnitus and know exactly what place I speak from!), because in my original post, the angels of our better nature manifested themselves simply by the presence of a dog in an isolated …yes, isolated incident. We are hardly the leaders of the fraudulent assistance dog community!
I posted to highlight the vast difference in my husband’s treatment.
Do you have a dog? Have you ever dealt with dogs with problems? We have had three rescues. All wonderful dogs but it takes time.
We have worked to ‘deal with it’ as you say.
Our dog’s separation anxiety was hardly inflicted on anyone else during the trip, he came with us for crying out loud. If he was aggressive or noisy, I could see your point, other people may be disturbed.
However, I have often been out in restaurants etc. where children and adults behave frightfully and nothing is done to ‘deal with’ behaviour that is either unacceptable, inappropriate or at worst unsafe with regard to the surrounding area. I appreciate we are discussing taking along pet dogs under the guise of assistance dogs, but many of the ‘imposters’ are simply well behaved dogs.
Personally I would rather be in the company of some of the dogs, rather than some of the human behaviour I have witnessed, especially on trains.

Thank you for your awareness of hearing loss.
Some people?
Ding Ding!!
Two jobs managed to cite something relating to the deterioration of his hearing in the non renewal of contract.
Badly trained dog? God another non dog person 🙄He was a well trained dog who experienced separation anxiety. One issue not write off the whole animal.
Big shouty letters WE DID IT ONCE.
My husband still gets treated like rubbish. The one time…one time you all condemn he was treated well.

You're talking about two totally different issues though. The dogs anxiety and lying about it being an assistant dog and your husbands hearing loss are totally unrelated. If your husband didn't have hearing loss what would you do about the dogs anxiety? It wouldn't change it. You still would either have to lie or find another dog friendly hotel.
It would be like someone saying my elderly mother was talked to like she was stupid in sainsbury's so now we're going to park in the blue badge area because there was no other parking spaces in the car park. The two things are nothing to do with each other.
The issue with people lying is everyone thinks they are the exception. And of COURSE their dog is well behaved. But often these dogs aren't well behaved. What would you do if your well behaved dog got bitten or attacked by another "well behaved support dog" who shouldn't have been there? This is the problem. If places want to allow all dogs then fine. Those who don't want to be near dogs can avoid them. But if places only allow full assistant dogs and everyone lies then you've got all manner of potentially badly behaved dogs in a place that some people may not want to be.

My friend has adopted a rescue with separation anxiety, costing a fortune in prozac and gabapentin prescriptions and weekly zoom meetings with a dog therapist.

She and her partner don't go anywhere together where it's not okay for the dog to go. If they want or need to go somewhere non-dog friendly, one goes and the other stays at home.

They don't lie about the dogs status to access places together.

I think it's madness that they are restricting their lives in such a way for the sake of a pet but they love the dog and it's up to them.

That's what responsible dog owners do. Change their lifestyle, not insist that the dog goes everywhere with them.

People have totally derailed this thread into an argument about how nevess/unnecessary assistance dogs are.
The thread was started because someone’s arsehole of a friend lied about having a disability and thought she was being funny and clever.

I am very much NOT a non dog person.
Your H doesn't deserve to be treated badly due to his hearing loss and you are perfectly justified in being annoyed about that but it gives you no right to pretend you have an assistance dog and it does a dis service to people who actually have one.
And just doing it once doesn't make it ok

Yes I know. Trust me.
Our third dog.
We have no idea what happened in the first three years of his life. He is now four.
He is family.
He was diagnosed with anxiety by a vet and has fear reactivity to other dogs, mainly black, male dogs. When we got him he was very nervous of traffic noise, anything wheeled, anything fast moving and anything downright strange (stuffed tigers on top of bins)
He was put on:
Loxicom
Trazadone
We also tried calming treats.
On his 2nd behaviourist/trainer
We also scoured YouTube training advice and joined reactive dog groups.
He is on his third escape proof harness, before his fantastic new trainer/ behaviourist gave him a collar (fourth).
I now work part time and I found him a field to exercise in. I’m studying so that I can continue to work from home on my own terms.
My husband is retiring early.
We are responsible dog owners who have changed our lifestyle.

Now if one of you could please get off your high horse and quote wherever I said that any of our dogs went with us everywhere or that we did the impostor assistance dog thing regularly I would be grateful, or is reading to the end of a post too much to ask?

Do you know how many times its acceptable to pretend your pet is an assistance dog?
Zero

I think any service provider should be able to ask for evidence that a dog is a service dog.

If I want to park in a disabled bay, I need a blue badge.

If I want to take my dog into a venue, I should need evidence it's a guide dog or whatever. Guide dogs tend to be obvious anyway, but other types of service dog are less obvious.

The guidance says the dog will behave well so the venue owner doesn't need to worry. But you don't know that until it gets in there. If it starts running around and pooing everywhere it's too late.

Any support animal should be trained accordingly, so there will be evidence they are a support animal. No evidence = it doesn't come in. Just as you can't park in a disabled bay if you don't display a blue badge.

The Equality Act applies to humans, not animals.

If a dog has a disability, assuming separation anxiety is bad enough to qualify as a disability for the dog, that isn't covered.

Actually the opposite is true - they are allowed in most shops and cafes, so it's fairly obvious to avoid the ones that don't (other than supermarkets, but then either shop online or leave the dog in the car/with someone else while you pop in).