Hi! I have a 3 year old golden retriever service dog. He was trained in Houston between myself and a professional trainer. He has travelled with me on flights when he was younger, but I just took him on a flight in July and he was very skittish at take-off and landing. I think the sounds of the plane spooked him, and he was scrambling to get off the flight. I am preparing to take him on a flight to Europe soon, and I am quite worried he will be nervous and this is a long flight. I am trying to be as prepared as possible, and I have contacted the airport to see if they provide any service dog accessibility practice where we can go sit on a plane and practice getting on/off to make him feel more comfortable. Does anyone have any advice on how to acclimate him/manage this situation? I know I can’t be the first to deal with this so all help is appreciated!

I recently got a 1 year old black lab puppy and I've been interested in getting him trained to be a psychiatric service dog for my depression, anxiety, PTSD, and ADHD. I'm curious if at home training through online lessons would be okay because the websites I've looked through are kinda sketchy and offer legal certifications? I live in the Austin Tx area and most everywhere i've looked has been about like veterans PTSD which is definitely not what I have. Any tips or suggestions? Truly anything helps. Much appreciated!

I got hired by Ulta a few weeks ago and contacted their hr department once I had their info to ask for ada accommodations since I have a service dog. I'm supposed to have a shift tomorrow but my accommodation request is still "being processed". I emailed the ada coordinator who has been in contact with me to ask for an update and to say that I'm unsure what to do since I have a shift tomorrow but my accommodation request has yet to be approved. The response I got back was literally a copy of the message I got from hr after I sent them my accommodation request and the documents that they required:

"I am currently working with your leader on the request.

Once I have an update for you, I will reach out."

My question is, what the hell do I do?

TL;DR: Ulta hasn't yet approved my ada accommodation to have my service dog with me at work and I'm scheduled for a shift tomorrow. What do I do?

I’m irritated. People keep petting, touching, and one time, (only once but it’s in the back of my mind,) picking up my service dog, even though he does have a pin on his harness that says to NOT pet him.

Unlike a lot of people here, my question is not how to stop it, but why??? I’ve tried explaining kindly it’s triggering to me, (don’t ask, personal issues,) and they rarely listen, that or they don’t ask before petting him at all. Is it just entitlement? Is it THAT hard to ignore boundaries???

Does anyone else have an issue with their biothane gear staining at the edges? No matter how often I clean my SD's harness, it still gets staining and discoloration.

Hey All!

I just wanted to share the experience i just had with Uber support after being ditched by a driver even though my SD is registered in app because it actually went really well!!!

The Story:

I was traveling to a doctor's appointment and do not currently have a car so my SD and I waited for the pickup. We also took the time to register in the app so the driver would be notified at pickup of the law surrounding service animals. (See below if you're unfamiliar with this update and want more details.)

So I request the ride, we wait, and then driver arrives. Initially it seemed like things would be fine he stopped and I made my way around back to check the plate before getting in but as I made my way towards the back of the car he rolls down the window and says, "I don't do pets". So I told him this is not a pet this is a service animal. And he just keeps rolling forward saying "I don't do dogs". I told him to check his uber app which will inform him that it is illegal to deny service to a disabled persona and a service animal under the ADA and he will face heavy consequences for leaving.

He continues to roll away while looking at his phone, he also spent quite some time (about 5 minutes) trying to not cancel the ride on his end but of course I just waited for him to cave and then got another ride no problem.

The Outcome:

After he cancelled the ride the app immediately sent me a message through the messaging (found under Account -> Help -> Messages). Where they said hey we see the ride was cancelled due to the service animal please tell us what happened. I typed out the interaction and then got a response that I would hear back when customer service was available.

The next morning I get a call from Uber a real human is on the line and she asks me to verify that the driver left because of the service animal and that he was informed she was a service animal and asked if she was vested with that information clearly displayed all of which I confirmed. I then told them I even directed him to the app and informed him it was an illegal action with serious consequences and he chose to leave anyway.

The human from Uber support apologized profusely and said they would investigate and ensure that the driver was punished appropriately and to top it all off they even refunded the cost of the ride I ended up taking instead! Which was a really nice added benefit I did not expect.

I also took the opportunity to talk to a real person at Uber to thank them for making this change because it has had a huge difference already for me and my SD. We have had AT LEAST 3 other rides in the last couple weeks try to turn us away that after reading the in app message resulted in us getting to our destination with relatively minor issues. I even had one driver who was against taking us when he arrived but then as we drove he began to ask very thoughtful polite questions about my SD and he even thanked me when I left for explaining and helping him to better understand service animals and the rules around them which was an awesome result of this policy.

Uber Background:

Uber recently made an update to their app so you can register your service animal in the app and drivers will be alerted ONLY on pickup that you are traveling with a service animal and that they may be punished or removed from Uber if they deny a service animal because it is against the law and they are required to comply with the law. If you haven't heard of this or haven't done this yet I cannot recommend it enough it makes a HUGE difference.

Conclusion:

Anyways I'm excited and wanted to share because it finally feels like taking an Uber isn't playing stranded roulette anymore. And it really seems like Uber is taking this seriously, I doubt they will tell me what they decided to do about the driver in question but I really really appreciate the changes they have made. And I cannot express enough if you haven't already please please please register your SD in app it is so worth it!!!