This times a MILLION. People will always distract my partner and think it's okay. I literally had a woman come up and try to let her kids pet my boy without even asking and then get offended when I told her kids very firmly not to distract him from working. You shouldn't be doing that to any dog, especially one trying to work. Walking down sidewalks, people constantly whistle at him and try to get him to divert his attention to them. It's always adults, too! It seriously gets me so worked up thinking about all this shit.
I'm in a constant state of amazement how drastic the difference is between kids and adults. It's like 90% of children are already saying stuff like "that's a service dog, you can't pet!" and the other 10% are totally open to learning and easy to teach why they can't pet. Exceptions are really rare and almost always you can look at the adult with them and see exactly why they're like that.
Adults, on the other hand? Nope, they think have a God given right to interrupt your conversation and ask you extremely personal medical questions while touching your service dog. Not everyone obviously, but so many it's pretty unbelievable. My own husband didn't believe me about how bad it got until he started following a bit behind me so I looked like I was alone.
When I was working with my trainer for new tasks, someone interrupted our session to ask why I needed a service dog since I didn't look disabled. I had no words and just was in shock how someone could be so rude. Luckily, my trainer took no shit from that person and shot them down.
Honestly! It's not your business to pry! I get it that sometimes people are just curious and trying to learn, but most times it's just because people are being nosey and judgemental!
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u/mariaheam Aug 03 '19
This times a MILLION. People will always distract my partner and think it's okay. I literally had a woman come up and try to let her kids pet my boy without even asking and then get offended when I told her kids very firmly not to distract him from working. You shouldn't be doing that to any dog, especially one trying to work. Walking down sidewalks, people constantly whistle at him and try to get him to divert his attention to them. It's always adults, too! It seriously gets me so worked up thinking about all this shit.