The news has been full of stories about fake assistance animals. There have been reports of untrained and aggressive service dogs and tales of emotional support peacocks, squirrels, hamsters and snakes.
As a trainer who spent over nine years training service dogs for a local service dog organization, fake service dogs are a hot button for me.
Badly behaved fake service dogs cause people to question the validity of real service dogs. This can make the life of a person with a physical disability and a legitimate service dog incredibly more difficult than it needs to be.