Lots of service dogs this trip

[avic77]

Service dog isn't the same thing as a comfort animal.

Sorry to mix the terms. I think hers is the comfort type.
I believe service dogs are trained to alert to a medical need or to guide a person with a disability. Those are what you expect but now there are so many of the other type its hurting those that truely have a need for a service animals.

 

[PollyannaMom]

IMO, if they are going to allow animals for any reason in Guest rooms, they need to set aside a wing or floor or building for them.

They can not legally do that. People who use service animals must be able to book any room that is open to anyone else with out penalty as by law.

Yes, legally - but I'm willing to be that if you asked the guests with service animals if they would prefer to be assigned to "wing A" because it helps protect those with allergies, most of them would say yes, for a couple of reasons:

1) Having disabilities themselves, they feel empathy for people with their own issues, and would be happy to help accommodate them as well.
2) It makes it much more likely they would get neighbors who also have dogs (or just love other people's*) so they wouldn't have to be worried about complaints or disturbing people.

* Even though I agreed above with stricter regulation of all this in general, I personally love animals, and would probably want to stay in that wing myself (if there was extra space) just so I could coo at them!
(I'm the one always bummed to see a service vest because I know it means I can't pet them while they're working.)

o/t but I wonder if stores well stop selling peanut products

I've wondered that myself.

 

[MickeyMinnieMom]

I'm sure I'm worried about nothing. I should be worried about my disney hating in-laws that decided to tagalong this trip.

Lots and LOTS of to you from me... I've been there... you'll be fine!!

 

[Smittolis]

on a slight tangent.... when getting off the monorail last week my family and I saw a miniature pony... yes, a miniature pony service animal being walked up the ramp to the board the monorail. The foreign visitors just stood there in amazement. This was my first time seeing such a large animal used in such a capacity.

 

[DAKDarling]

I think there's a place near Disney that trains service dogs. If I remember, they allow them to use Disney parks as part of the training, to get the dogs used to dealing with crowds. Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought I read that a while ago. If so, maybe that was the week for "crowd training" for a bunch of dogs.

I was just about to comment this! One day I was at MK with a friend and we came across a group of dogs being trained. We talked to the trainers and they said that the parks are an ideal location to train because there's so many sights, sounds and smells that the dogs have to focus on.

 

[DAKDarling]

Who's complaining about more puppies being in the park? They're good boys.

 

[lisaloo45]

We've been coming to WDW every year for over 10 years and this trip we've seen a lot of service dogs for people who appear to be just fine.

Now, I know there are invisible illnesses but I've seen at least 10 dogs in a week with people in the parks. The only person that could have used a dog was a blind man and even he didn't have one. Just seems like everything else in society lately - overkill.

funny that you are deciding who needs and does not need a service dog. you are correct not all illnesses are visible. I speak from experience since I am a very brittle type one diabetic with two type 1 diabetic children (now 14 and 16) we have had a very well behaved professionally trained service dog (diabetes alert dog) for 3 years now, he accompanies our son everywhere (school, dr appts, etc) he alerts all three of us when we are low, going low, high etc. he has saved my life multiple times by getting help when I was unable to treat myself during extremely low hypoglycemia. we once ran into an extremely rude man in public mocking the "fake service dog" to his wife. Cooper is impeccably behaved and not 15 minutes after this person was being so rude Cooper alerted me to low BG. (we were at my daughters gymnastics center and I was sitting with my type 1 diabetic son watching) This made a huge impact on my son who was flabbergasted on how rude some people can be. the bottom line is yes, there are many "fake" service dogs and they are usually very easy to spot (barking, being held, in a stroller, behaving poorly or aggressively) but there are also many of us with "invisible disabilities" who absolutely benefit from our well trained service dogs. I can't imagine life without our cooper (he is a british lab) and he actually has his own FB page (cooper the super diabetes alert dog). I now spend as much time as I can educating the public and luckily we have only had a few bumps in the road from uneducated people in public. he went on a 2 week vacation with us to WDW, once we ran into a "service dog" in a vest barking like crazy and jumping at Coop in a netted dog stroller. The registration some have mentioned here is FAKE. anyone with a registration card is showing you something that does not even exist. there is no registry for service dogs: period. wish you the best and just trying to share our experience. Our Cooper has been a life saver multiple times over.

 

[wdwlver]

Old thread

 

[GADisneyDad14]

Closing this 2017 thread.