Thread by @servicerotties

🧵 Today a lady got close to me, said "are you a good doggy?", and reached out towards me. When I turned to see her I almost booped her hand and she told me "You're a #ServiceDog. You're supposed to ignore me."
WRONG.
She's supposed to ignore me. She didn't do that.

1/5

I'm not supposed to initiate interactions with humans. I didn't.

Today we also saw my friend, the butcher. He came right up to give my Mistress a treat for me. He spoke directly to her and I stayed in a down, even though he's my friend and I'd love to sniff him. He knows
2/5

to ignore a service dog and only interact if the handler says it's OK.

We are trained to ignore common distractions, like people passing by us, bikes, shopping carts, etc, but we have to listen and obey strangers. In fact, this is part of standard testing of service

3/5

dogs. It ensures in an emergency situation, if a stranger needs to handle us, we will be obedient.

So please, don't call us, make eye contact and gesture us over, or do kissy noises, otherwise we might think you're trying to give us a cue. Don't ask our name and then say

4/5

call us by it. Simply leave us be and address our handlers. At times we might be allowed to say hi but that needs to be at the discretion of our handler, not you.

So if I'm working, you ignore me and I ignore you. And now you know what to do around a #ServiceDog.

5/5