Fake therapy dogs dine out on owners’ selfishness

Acquaintances brag that they take their dog everywhere because he is a “service dog.” The thing is, he’s not; he’s a therapy dog . . . loosely, at best. He’s had no training. But there’s a website where you can “register your dog as a service dog for free.” We all love our dogs, but I find it unethical to take advantage of a “service dog” designation to take an animal into restaurants. Agree?

There are manifold and excellent reasons why pooches don’t belong in restaurants. Dogs stink, are clumsy (especially with their tails) and have atrocious sanitary habits, sniffing each other in places I’d rather not ponder.

Then there are crabby people (much like myself) who simply don’t like dogs in general, and would rather dine curlessly.

There are, however, even more good reasons why people dependent on dogs do belong in restaurants. Persons with disabilities have a perfect right to dine out on the same basis as everyone else, and welltrained service dogs make that possible in a way nothing, or no one, else could.

I have walked down Yonge St. on a Saturday afternoon with a blind friend, and watched her dog lead her flawlessly through crowds, street festivals and traffic signals — even across the intersection at Yonge-Dundas Square. The mind boggles.

So no one, not even dog-grumps like me, would deny someone dependent on a service dog the right to take their companion anywhere they darned well choose.

The catch, however, is in the word “dependent.” In the early days of service doggery, we called these canines “seeing eye dogs,” and their function was obvious.

In intervening years, however, the range of skills for which dogs are trained has grown dramatically; they alert deaf people to alarms, open doors, pick up objects for folks with mobility limitations, and, apparently, even provide monitoring and intervention for folks with certain psychiatric disorders.

But, under the category of “give ’em a centimetre, they’ll take a metre,” we now have this loosely defined category of “therapy dogs” whose specialty, it seems, is making their owners feel all warm and fuzzy. Such dogs are not necessarily trained, but provide “emotional support” for their owners. Now, forgive my cynicism — but isn’t such an animal what we normally call a pet?

Ginger-cat curls up underneath my chin, purrs gently, and my blood pressure drops 20 points. I’m “emotionally supported” and may even proffer a cat treat as a reward. But he’s not coming to dinner at a fine dining establishment, not even McD’s.

Your friends are cheating. There are websites where you can get a fake ordination certificate and call yourself a minister, but that doesn’t place you one inch closer to God. And a fake certificate doesn’t qualify Rover to go to a restaurant either. Send your questions to star.ethics@yahoo.ca.