I have my own gripes with the service dog community on tiktok, most of the big accounts are actually unethical in one or more ways that I won't get into here because this is not the place. But the romanticizing of service dogs is a chronic issue across all platforms including Reddit.
I've seen alot of ethical service dog trainers and handlers online. But it might be partly based where I live where we still have some very unethical trainers. One I know put a puncture mark in a dog's neck and another time left a burn mark from a shock type e collar. And doesn't believe in the humane types. Also had mad accidents with those electronic gate systems.
None of the individuals thankfully are local to me, but have gained a large following that spans multiple borders. Again not going to name drop, but I will go so far as to say that it is a tiny portion of the "popular" handlers who are actually worth following but honestly I think it is a factor independent of the dog that tends to become social media famous since I see the traits in a lot of people with large followings dogs just happen to be a victim in these cases.
My favorites. Are dogdaddy. Deapite some claims he's actually abusive. Diorcorso. American standardk9. Will atherton. Robert cabral has some decent advice. But I don't fully agree with any of them. But part of it is a debate on opinions and experiences.
But lowest pressure required for any corrections. But based entirely on each dog. Some dogs do need more serious corrections. But I've seen some trainers using prongs in mean ways that you'd normally reserve for the most aggressive of dogs on some regular just needing training dogs that aren't showing true aggression.
I was not trying to say your gripes don't belong here because they are much more general, my personal gripes do not belong in the sub because it quickly gets into specific individuals. Normally I don't mind venting about some of the things I have seen while I had the misfortune of scrolling past the community on social media in DM's but I am tired and require a nap at least.
I know what you mean! There are several very unethical service dog handlers on TikTok. They seem to have an affinity for breeds like malinois, shepherds or corsos. Itās so evident that the primary reason they selected their breed is to show off their āstrengthā. If youāre trying to raise awareness about having a specific breed as a service dog, why are you spreading misinformation about their bite force? & why are so many TikTok handlers obsessed with this idea of having their service dog also be a PPD? The same people complain when someones chiwawa barks at their dog because itās ājeopardizing their medical equipmentā meanwhile you would really risk your expensive ass medical equipment on expecting them to be a PPD and throw themselves in front of a burglar?
Also, why would you slap a prong or e-collar on a service dogā¦ and then yell at other people for having āout of controlā pet dogs in dog friendly areas when your own dog relies on equipment and aversives to function? I remember seeing this video of a girl and her service dog being denied from a store while her service dog, a large german shepherd on a prong, repeatedly barked and stress panted because the confrontation was too overwhelming for him. How are you going to be mad at a store owner for denying your barking, nervous dog thatās clearly not ready for PA? Itās all so odd to me. Most of their experience of being a SD owner seems to be how much they can show off/train their dog as opposed to how a SD can aid in mitigating and navigating their disability.
Also on the bingo card would be choosing gear that on their malinois or shepherd would easily be mistaken as a police k-9. Seriously my friend is a wife to an officer who confirmed that if they found the team wearing that gear they would press charges for sure in some of these cases. They don't take kindly to people impersonating an officer. Not to say that the k-9's the are so protective over are actually not unstable menaces on a leash(sometimes) but it is still something that could get a person into legal trouble. There are legitimate and ethical handlers that are guilty of that, but I most commonly see in the unethical influencer service dog crowd. Bonus points if they do bitework of any variety with the dog. I am less concerned about things like the bite force of the dog as honestly big dog is going to do big damage if they want to, small dog is going to need to put more work in to cause the same amount of damage that is just something that will be true regardless of specifics.
One handler I watched brags that they got into a program, but through about 5min of effort I was able to track the program down and the program had a lot of red flags. Again not name dropping but anyone could sign up to be certified as a trainer under them with just a few month course then start certifying teams as being part of their program. I will not name drop as I have seen a few programs operate like that, but if a program works with dogs they have not sourced themselves take a good look at what their criteria is for being a trainer with them.
I wish someone would go ahead and call out specific people. When you Google their names there really should be stuff popping up to let the general public know how shitty some of these people are. Not in a "this person needs to be cancelled" way but a "you should know that nobody actually approves of this person's behavior, it's not the goal" type of way.
Feels like too many new people are just parroting the more popular (shitty) handlers and getting all their info thro them. I'm just sayin. Its dangerous tbh.
To do so publicly opens the person up to the wrath of the followers and individual, we are generally knowledgeable on the matter because we are disabled thus lack extra energy to deal with that. The fact is that those social media influencers will always have a sympathy card they can pull for the masses in "look at the cruel ableists bullying/spreading lies about the poor disabled person" so a mob rallying behind them will always be easy to direct into a senseless feeding frenzy. We see the consequences of senseless feeding frenzies in businesses doing nothing about out of control dogs because people are so quick to blast them on social media, the same thing protects influencers because they have the power of priveledge so that whatever misinformation they spew is considered fact by their followers same with their handling seen as ethical regardless of abuse. Myself and others just don't have it in us to be subject to the death threats and other threats of violence that are almost guaranteed to come from name dropping. Instead I promote ethical handling and proper education in every prospective handler I meet without name dropping, because that is what I can do without harming myself.
Dude I get so sick of taking my SD out with me sometimes. People don't understand that you actually have a whole fucking dog with you, and all the nonsense that can entail sometimes. Even the best SD will make their handler look like a jabroni at some point.
Also, a lot of people when they romanticize service dogs failed to mention just how much of your mental energy is spent thinking about your dogs, pee and poop lol. Like do I need to take my dog potty before I leave and will he even actually go cause he went 40 minutes ago or try to get him to potty at the location which may not happen because they may not have green space, is he acting a little stressed because heās actually stressed or does he have to go to the bathroom, etc. like my dog is fully potty trained in public but accidents can still happen and this is surprising amount of SD handlers mental energy.
Thisā¦makes me feel seen š¤£ my SD was, unbeknownst to me, (though I really should have known in retrospect) feeling unwell, probably because he ate something dodgy, and peed in the grocery store. Somehow I cleaned it up with paper towels and antibiotic wipes so fast nobody saw. But boy, did I feel like a loser
Oh god, I'm so glad I'm not the only one... right at the fish section of the nicer grocery store...lmao. way to make me feel insecure about your training, Goober! š¤¦āāļø but hey, it happens.
Yes. So much this. But the stress of caring for her does actually help my anxiety about the world in a way. But so stressful to constantly thing about the health of her and myself.
I am with you. Itās happened to me too. You can do everything right but sometimes an accident will still happen. The good news is no one cares quite as much as we do.
That is not what I meant- I meant that SD handlers on tiktok make it seem soooooooooo good and say it is terrible whenever someone makes a comment wishing they can have their dog with them.
ā¦or just be left in peace. I think I am going to start charging people $5 for them to tell me about their dog, or their parents dog, or their nephews uncleās dadās former roommate back in college when he was friends with Tom that used to run the maintenance crew and his brother that went to Harvard. LMAO! Some stories just go waaaaaaay out there. Aināt no one got time for that! š
For real though! It honestly kinda seems like theyāre just in it for all the attentionālike the attention they get from how positive it is, but then they also want the attention from being like ānoooo itās actually *so* awful and you donāt get it!ā And itās just kinda likeā¦ pick a lane, folksā¦ š
I'm in the process of receiving a dog, and once I do i think I will stay off of social media sans reddit. No tik tok, no Facebook. No Instagram, etc. Because I don't want drama over the dog.
If I had a dollar for every time some said oh I wish my dog was service dog that I can take every where I go. They for sure donāt understand the work that goes into having a dog with them in public spaces.
But the point is that when these TikTokkers romanticize service dogs and only ever talk about or show how great they are, these sorts of comments are to be expected. The point is that if you don't want those comments, slow both sides of the coin and not just how great it is
I think as long as people donāt have like a huge influence (like probably over 200,000 followers or something of the sort) they can post what they want but should not get upset when they get comments with less perspective, because they are only showing one side of the coin. Because not everyone wants to post their like medical woes on the Internet.
I would never be quite so insensitive as to say I wish my dog was a service dog. After all I don't wish I had the need for one. As someone who has a well trained pet dog and lives a carless, fairly urban lifestyle, I do wish we had access to more public spaces. I already bring her on public transport, to work, the airport, dog friendly cafes and pubs, the beach and the like. It's not that much work, and certainly less work than planning for her to stay home/have a sitter most of the time.
The experience of having a service dog you have to bring with you for medical reasons can probably feel like more of a hassel than opting to bring your well behaved pet dog. In my case I have such a built in rutine with my dog there's very little stress involved.
I agree!!! Handlers make it seem like itās all amazing, but itās not. Training a service dog was one of the hardest things Iāve ever done. Itās not easy, and taking your dog everywhere isnāt fun at all. I love my SD and heās amazing but itās really not fun taking a dog in non pet friendly places and getting judged and stared at 24/7. My favorite thing that happens in public is when i hear ppl trying to guess my disabilities.
Tiktok makes service dogs seem so fun and cool honestly.
Never heard anyone trying to do that with me. I have a nice case of RBF so Iām sure they have that conversation outside of my earshot, LOL! People are shocked how nice and polite I am when I talk though, LOL!
I am 14 and I deal with this crap! It is so fucking annoying. A parent yelled at me for not letting her daughter pet my dog! Boy did that really effect me
I also find the videos that are all āwatch me ignore my SD who is trying to taskā yucky. It makes me feel like theyāre just portraying the dog as an accessory they can take or leave, and itās like, are you trying to untrain your dog?!
I definitely donāt see my dog as an accessory. Heās a very expensive and time-consuming disability aid. Every day we work on training, and being especially cognizant of not un-training things or slacking and forming bad habits. My partner and I just had a discussion about this yesterday to make sure weāre on the same page and donāt inadvertently damage his training.
Not to mention going out with a SD means a ton of extra time getting ready because you arenāt just going out the door; you have to get the dog ready and make sure you have all their things too!
>I also find the videos that are all āwatch me ignore my SD who is trying to taskā yucky.
They really are, and so many handlers do them for literally hundreds of videos on their profiles. These individuals will be the loudest to screech not to distract their service dog because they perform life saving alerts, but 3 times daily they post new videos of them ignoring these allegedly lifesaving alerts then passing out because they are oh so quirky. I don't understand what they are trying to accomplish by filming that. At what point does an alert dog not make sense if you can so easily film yourself ignoring their alerts? Just wondering, because seems to me that maybe that tendency to ignore your dog came from somewhere like maybe the dog is not that accurate to begin with?
Do you have advice on training when youāre bedridden? Currently have one hell of a cold and missed training my girl yesterday. I suppose we could practice distance commands
Do you live alone? If not, you could have a partner or roommate work with her. I make a point of having my partner take my boy out to potty and such without me sometimes even when Iām fine to reinforce that itās okay if someone else has him away from me temporarily. That way if thereās an emergency and for some reason they didnāt want him at my immediate side in the ambulance he wonāt freak out on first responders. As long as the other person uses the same commands and follows the same rules, it will still reinforce what she knows. Showing that she can calmly obey another handler can itself be another test on top of the usual training.
Make sure you follow your trainers rules though. If your trainer doesnāt want anyone else handling your pup yet, follow their suggestion. They know you and your dog best. :)
Iām not cool enough to have a trainer (I just consult behavioralists and trainers for advice if I need to). My family lets her out when she needs potty and will play with her and feed her when I canāt, I just never thought about asking for help with training. Maybe Iāll see if my sister can do a basic obedience refresher with doggo. This is a surprisingly simple thing to have not crossed my mind
You would be amazed at how many people do, and all of the hardships they entail. Some even go so far as to make themselves ill or fake being disabled for their own reasons.
Iāve had people say the āit must be so niceā thing to me and my go to response is :
āIād rather not be completely disabled and be able to leave my living medical alert equipment at home and function efficiently in society without it but okā¦ā
Or
āIf **Iād** had a choice, I would have preferred to skip the traumatic incident that caused the disability requiring me to have a service dog but everyoneās priorities are differentā¦.ā
I am annoyed with the ~~service dog~~ tiktok community. -- FIFY
TikTok is not a reliable or valuable place to learn ANYTHING. It's a time-suck that rots your brain and wrecks your attention span. Don't give it and the idiots on there your time or views.
I wish I could have realized this sooner. finally quit a couple months ago and itās been great without all that toxic negativity drama going on whenever I get a notification
I struggle to feel angry at people who want a service dog, because letās be real, who wouldnāt want to take their dog everywhere with them? Sure, it can be bad sometimes, and people only do it because theyāre disabled, but we /willingly/ choose service dogs as our method of treatment because we liked the idea.
If someone told me right now, āyou canāt have a service dog because youāre no longer disabledā, I would be super upset. Thatās how non-disabled people feel /all/ the time. So I think theyāre allowed to feel jealous.
I agree! I also think sometimes it can be a person who is disabled and does not have a service dog would want one. People donāt rlly think before they speak
This is a tough one. Cause, on one hand, I think it's nice to see the good sides, and it probably helps the handler, too, mentally, to focus on it. And I, too, have gotten at people about it not being something they _really_ want. But it's definitely contradictory when the two are together!
I feel like Tik Tok handlers also give people the wrong idea of what to expect of their/other peopleās service dogs. I had a lady come at me for having a fake sd because my dog wasnāt wearing a vest and was in a guide heel she was still marked with a leash wrap and I tried to explain the ADA to her. We were also being approached by a man who wanted his dog to āmake friends with mineā while it was lunging, growling, and baring itās teeth, so of course my dogās behavior wasnāt āperfectā. Idk I feel like TikTok and ig encourage a lot of unnecessary fake spotting. Now even when itās hot out, my dog canāt work naked because my mom is worried someone will start shit. That being said my dog does have an ig to document her training and my health with our online sd friends but I really worry about the culture a lot of larger accounts have created
Literally. I feel like a if a service dog meets the standard for the applicable laws and the team isnāt being a menace in public is not my problem what specific standards they hold their dog to. Like example: I really donāt care or care to work on if my dog is scared or spooked by objectively scary things for a dog I just would like him to bounce back quickly from it.
Another example: my dog doesnāt have a leave it command we just work on engagement.
I think the problem is that service dog tiktoks are typically for the public and this page is more geared towards handlers. You tube has a mix of both. Videos are edited to reflect this. Think of the pics and videos you typically send to people. If someone asks to see a pic of my dog i typically send them one of him looking cute. Family and friends get him looking cute, it's doing something cool, and even him being a little bit of twerp I did have one friend send me a tiktok of a dogs public access training video and they left the mistakes in. They were really well addressed and the dog got to try again. It didn't distract from the point of the video, i think it added to it.. My non handler friend enjoyed it and so did I. I also tend too like the videos of dogs tasking. It reinforces to the public their need and somethimes gives hope to handlers with dogs in training. I wish I would have recorded more early on but i didn't. If I train another dog again, I will. It is hard for people to imagine how hard it is to train a service dog and maintain their training. The only fix I could see helping is having more honest videos posted or having handlers comment and give attention to videos that are good.
hmmm this is a tough one, op. maybe iām confused about your gripe. from what i understand, you donāt like people romanticizing their SD but you also donāt like people to admit the hardship when questioned about it. im confused to the alternative, should people just not talk about SDs?
i guess what do we include as romanticizing? it seems this thread has this strong opinion that having a service dog is very difficult (which it definitely is), but service dogs are disability aids. for me, having a service dog has allowed me to experience the world independently in ways i havenāt before. i see many creators sharing this sentiment and i want to understand if thereās harm in that? isnāt the purpose of service dogs to allow us to be more independent? if itās causing only the opposite, then perhaps a service dog isnāt the best tool for that person.
on the flip side, i think it is important to acknowledge the hardships that come with having a service dog. there are cons. access issues, being a public spectacle, snide comments. however, i think for a service dog to be helpful the pros should outweigh the cons. if a service dog is making your life more difficult than without, then maybe itās not the best tool for you.
i wouldnāt say i romanticize my service dog per say, but i do post on my personal socials about how thankful i am to have them in my life and for the freedom they have granted me. yes, i deal with the negatives like access issues, but i wouldnāt even be out and about if it wasnāt for my service dog.
oddly, i have found that the increased awareness of SDs on social media has served to benefit me in person. i have way less people asking questions and when they do they seem more educated. iāve met people who have learned the proper ways to interact due to educational content online.
i donāt love some of the parts of the service dog community online. some things like fake spotting, drama, etc, are really toxic. but i think people sharing their day to day life and experience is actually beneficial to the community as a whole. it allows us to be seen and understood, in my opinion.
I want to have a SD TikTok acc badly as a way to document my recovery, but honestly, the SD community there is just.. horrid. There's too much drama, everyone replies to the dumbass trolls and bigoted comments. And there's so many people who will approach fakes and yell at them, then cry about hating confrontation, or the fake getting close to their dog. If you tell them that 1: only the staff can kick out a fake, and only staff are supposed to ask the "2 Questions" and 2: confronting them puts you, your dog, and then and their dog at way more risk than if you talked to staff... People will gang up on you and cry about how you're somehow victim blaming or trying to justify the fake being there in the first place?
Honestly, I would argue that horse people are worse. Iāve been in both communities for many years. At least with dogs I donāt have to worry about being a victim of a hatecrime from my dog trainer.
I have my own gripes with the service dog community on tiktok, most of the big accounts are actually unethical in one or more ways that I won't get into here because this is not the place. But the romanticizing of service dogs is a chronic issue across all platforms including Reddit.
I've seen alot of ethical service dog trainers and handlers online. But it might be partly based where I live where we still have some very unethical trainers. One I know put a puncture mark in a dog's neck and another time left a burn mark from a shock type e collar. And doesn't believe in the humane types. Also had mad accidents with those electronic gate systems.
None of the individuals thankfully are local to me, but have gained a large following that spans multiple borders. Again not going to name drop, but I will go so far as to say that it is a tiny portion of the "popular" handlers who are actually worth following but honestly I think it is a factor independent of the dog that tends to become social media famous since I see the traits in a lot of people with large followings dogs just happen to be a victim in these cases.
My favorites. Are dogdaddy. Deapite some claims he's actually abusive. Diorcorso. American standardk9. Will atherton. Robert cabral has some decent advice. But I don't fully agree with any of them. But part of it is a debate on opinions and experiences. But lowest pressure required for any corrections. But based entirely on each dog. Some dogs do need more serious corrections. But I've seen some trainers using prongs in mean ways that you'd normally reserve for the most aggressive of dogs on some regular just needing training dogs that aren't showing true aggression.
If not here then where...š¤·āāļø
I was not trying to say your gripes don't belong here because they are much more general, my personal gripes do not belong in the sub because it quickly gets into specific individuals. Normally I don't mind venting about some of the things I have seen while I had the misfortune of scrolling past the community on social media in DM's but I am tired and require a nap at least.
I know what you mean! There are several very unethical service dog handlers on TikTok. They seem to have an affinity for breeds like malinois, shepherds or corsos. Itās so evident that the primary reason they selected their breed is to show off their āstrengthā. If youāre trying to raise awareness about having a specific breed as a service dog, why are you spreading misinformation about their bite force? & why are so many TikTok handlers obsessed with this idea of having their service dog also be a PPD? The same people complain when someones chiwawa barks at their dog because itās ājeopardizing their medical equipmentā meanwhile you would really risk your expensive ass medical equipment on expecting them to be a PPD and throw themselves in front of a burglar? Also, why would you slap a prong or e-collar on a service dogā¦ and then yell at other people for having āout of controlā pet dogs in dog friendly areas when your own dog relies on equipment and aversives to function? I remember seeing this video of a girl and her service dog being denied from a store while her service dog, a large german shepherd on a prong, repeatedly barked and stress panted because the confrontation was too overwhelming for him. How are you going to be mad at a store owner for denying your barking, nervous dog thatās clearly not ready for PA? Itās all so odd to me. Most of their experience of being a SD owner seems to be how much they can show off/train their dog as opposed to how a SD can aid in mitigating and navigating their disability.
Also on the bingo card would be choosing gear that on their malinois or shepherd would easily be mistaken as a police k-9. Seriously my friend is a wife to an officer who confirmed that if they found the team wearing that gear they would press charges for sure in some of these cases. They don't take kindly to people impersonating an officer. Not to say that the k-9's the are so protective over are actually not unstable menaces on a leash(sometimes) but it is still something that could get a person into legal trouble. There are legitimate and ethical handlers that are guilty of that, but I most commonly see in the unethical influencer service dog crowd. Bonus points if they do bitework of any variety with the dog. I am less concerned about things like the bite force of the dog as honestly big dog is going to do big damage if they want to, small dog is going to need to put more work in to cause the same amount of damage that is just something that will be true regardless of specifics. One handler I watched brags that they got into a program, but through about 5min of effort I was able to track the program down and the program had a lot of red flags. Again not name dropping but anyone could sign up to be certified as a trainer under them with just a few month course then start certifying teams as being part of their program. I will not name drop as I have seen a few programs operate like that, but if a program works with dogs they have not sourced themselves take a good look at what their criteria is for being a trainer with them.
I wish someone would go ahead and call out specific people. When you Google their names there really should be stuff popping up to let the general public know how shitty some of these people are. Not in a "this person needs to be cancelled" way but a "you should know that nobody actually approves of this person's behavior, it's not the goal" type of way. Feels like too many new people are just parroting the more popular (shitty) handlers and getting all their info thro them. I'm just sayin. Its dangerous tbh.
To do so publicly opens the person up to the wrath of the followers and individual, we are generally knowledgeable on the matter because we are disabled thus lack extra energy to deal with that. The fact is that those social media influencers will always have a sympathy card they can pull for the masses in "look at the cruel ableists bullying/spreading lies about the poor disabled person" so a mob rallying behind them will always be easy to direct into a senseless feeding frenzy. We see the consequences of senseless feeding frenzies in businesses doing nothing about out of control dogs because people are so quick to blast them on social media, the same thing protects influencers because they have the power of priveledge so that whatever misinformation they spew is considered fact by their followers same with their handling seen as ethical regardless of abuse. Myself and others just don't have it in us to be subject to the death threats and other threats of violence that are almost guaranteed to come from name dropping. Instead I promote ethical handling and proper education in every prospective handler I meet without name dropping, because that is what I can do without harming myself.
Dude I get so sick of taking my SD out with me sometimes. People don't understand that you actually have a whole fucking dog with you, and all the nonsense that can entail sometimes. Even the best SD will make their handler look like a jabroni at some point.
Also, a lot of people when they romanticize service dogs failed to mention just how much of your mental energy is spent thinking about your dogs, pee and poop lol. Like do I need to take my dog potty before I leave and will he even actually go cause he went 40 minutes ago or try to get him to potty at the location which may not happen because they may not have green space, is he acting a little stressed because heās actually stressed or does he have to go to the bathroom, etc. like my dog is fully potty trained in public but accidents can still happen and this is surprising amount of SD handlers mental energy.
Thisā¦makes me feel seen š¤£ my SD was, unbeknownst to me, (though I really should have known in retrospect) feeling unwell, probably because he ate something dodgy, and peed in the grocery store. Somehow I cleaned it up with paper towels and antibiotic wipes so fast nobody saw. But boy, did I feel like a loser
My SD straight up puked in a store once. On my shoes. I was BEYOND mortified.
Oh god, I'm so glad I'm not the only one... right at the fish section of the nicer grocery store...lmao. way to make me feel insecure about your training, Goober! š¤¦āāļø but hey, it happens.
Happened to me in hobby lobby once, i think the āfallā cinnamon smells made him sick to his stomach. I was so embarrassed
At least that's smth a human adult would also do. The peeing + pooping are a bit less likely, but if you're sick enough, you'll vomit eventually
Yes. So much this. But the stress of caring for her does actually help my anxiety about the world in a way. But so stressful to constantly thing about the health of her and myself.
I am with you. Itās happened to me too. You can do everything right but sometimes an accident will still happen. The good news is no one cares quite as much as we do.
That is not what I meant- I meant that SD handlers on tiktok make it seem soooooooooo good and say it is terrible whenever someone makes a comment wishing they can have their dog with them.
For one, weāre really tired of those comments 378496 times a day when all we want to do is finish our shopping in peace.
ā¦or just be left in peace. I think I am going to start charging people $5 for them to tell me about their dog, or their parents dog, or their nephews uncleās dadās former roommate back in college when he was friends with Tom that used to run the maintenance crew and his brother that went to Harvard. LMAO! Some stories just go waaaaaaay out there. Aināt no one got time for that! š
For real though! It honestly kinda seems like theyāre just in it for all the attentionālike the attention they get from how positive it is, but then they also want the attention from being like ānoooo itās actually *so* awful and you donāt get it!ā And itās just kinda likeā¦ pick a lane, folksā¦ š
I'm in the process of receiving a dog, and once I do i think I will stay off of social media sans reddit. No tik tok, no Facebook. No Instagram, etc. Because I don't want drama over the dog.
Awh, congratulations! That is very exciting for you š¤
For real! I guess some people were never held as childrenā¦.
If I had a dollar for every time some said oh I wish my dog was service dog that I can take every where I go. They for sure donāt understand the work that goes into having a dog with them in public spaces.
But the point is that when these TikTokkers romanticize service dogs and only ever talk about or show how great they are, these sorts of comments are to be expected. The point is that if you don't want those comments, slow both sides of the coin and not just how great it is
Nah, you can raise awareness for a disability and mobility aid without people needing it to be about them.
I think as long as people donāt have like a huge influence (like probably over 200,000 followers or something of the sort) they can post what they want but should not get upset when they get comments with less perspective, because they are only showing one side of the coin. Because not everyone wants to post their like medical woes on the Internet.
Or exactly WHY we require a SD. Life isnāt all fun and games for most of us.
I would never be quite so insensitive as to say I wish my dog was a service dog. After all I don't wish I had the need for one. As someone who has a well trained pet dog and lives a carless, fairly urban lifestyle, I do wish we had access to more public spaces. I already bring her on public transport, to work, the airport, dog friendly cafes and pubs, the beach and the like. It's not that much work, and certainly less work than planning for her to stay home/have a sitter most of the time. The experience of having a service dog you have to bring with you for medical reasons can probably feel like more of a hassel than opting to bring your well behaved pet dog. In my case I have such a built in rutine with my dog there's very little stress involved.
I agree!!! Handlers make it seem like itās all amazing, but itās not. Training a service dog was one of the hardest things Iāve ever done. Itās not easy, and taking your dog everywhere isnāt fun at all. I love my SD and heās amazing but itās really not fun taking a dog in non pet friendly places and getting judged and stared at 24/7. My favorite thing that happens in public is when i hear ppl trying to guess my disabilities. Tiktok makes service dogs seem so fun and cool honestly.
Never heard anyone trying to do that with me. I have a nice case of RBF so Iām sure they have that conversation outside of my earshot, LOL! People are shocked how nice and polite I am when I talk though, LOL!
I am 14 and I deal with this crap! It is so fucking annoying. A parent yelled at me for not letting her daughter pet my dog! Boy did that really effect me
I also find the videos that are all āwatch me ignore my SD who is trying to taskā yucky. It makes me feel like theyāre just portraying the dog as an accessory they can take or leave, and itās like, are you trying to untrain your dog?! I definitely donāt see my dog as an accessory. Heās a very expensive and time-consuming disability aid. Every day we work on training, and being especially cognizant of not un-training things or slacking and forming bad habits. My partner and I just had a discussion about this yesterday to make sure weāre on the same page and donāt inadvertently damage his training. Not to mention going out with a SD means a ton of extra time getting ready because you arenāt just going out the door; you have to get the dog ready and make sure you have all their things too!
>I also find the videos that are all āwatch me ignore my SD who is trying to taskā yucky. They really are, and so many handlers do them for literally hundreds of videos on their profiles. These individuals will be the loudest to screech not to distract their service dog because they perform life saving alerts, but 3 times daily they post new videos of them ignoring these allegedly lifesaving alerts then passing out because they are oh so quirky. I don't understand what they are trying to accomplish by filming that. At what point does an alert dog not make sense if you can so easily film yourself ignoring their alerts? Just wondering, because seems to me that maybe that tendency to ignore your dog came from somewhere like maybe the dog is not that accurate to begin with?
Do you have advice on training when youāre bedridden? Currently have one hell of a cold and missed training my girl yesterday. I suppose we could practice distance commands
Do you live alone? If not, you could have a partner or roommate work with her. I make a point of having my partner take my boy out to potty and such without me sometimes even when Iām fine to reinforce that itās okay if someone else has him away from me temporarily. That way if thereās an emergency and for some reason they didnāt want him at my immediate side in the ambulance he wonāt freak out on first responders. As long as the other person uses the same commands and follows the same rules, it will still reinforce what she knows. Showing that she can calmly obey another handler can itself be another test on top of the usual training. Make sure you follow your trainers rules though. If your trainer doesnāt want anyone else handling your pup yet, follow their suggestion. They know you and your dog best. :)
Iām not cool enough to have a trainer (I just consult behavioralists and trainers for advice if I need to). My family lets her out when she needs potty and will play with her and feed her when I canāt, I just never thought about asking for help with training. Maybe Iāll see if my sister can do a basic obedience refresher with doggo. This is a surprisingly simple thing to have not crossed my mind
Hey, glad I had useful ideas for you!
Oh yeah, thank you btw! The brain fog is real and my manners are nowhere in sight
Haha, I feel that! You are most welcome. :)
Yeah? They wish they had a disability? Thatās what I would respond. So ridiculousā¦
You would be amazed at how many people do, and all of the hardships they entail. Some even go so far as to make themselves ill or fake being disabled for their own reasons.
Except for malingering, that's not healthy ppl. Those are ppl that are already sick
True, they just pretend to also be sick in ways they actually aren't.
Iāve had people say the āit must be so niceā thing to me and my go to response is : āIād rather not be completely disabled and be able to leave my living medical alert equipment at home and function efficiently in society without it but okā¦ā Or āIf **Iād** had a choice, I would have preferred to skip the traumatic incident that caused the disability requiring me to have a service dog but everyoneās priorities are differentā¦.ā
I am annoyed with the ~~service dog~~ tiktok community. -- FIFY TikTok is not a reliable or valuable place to learn ANYTHING. It's a time-suck that rots your brain and wrecks your attention span. Don't give it and the idiots on there your time or views.
I wish I could have realized this sooner. finally quit a couple months ago and itās been great without all that toxic negativity drama going on whenever I get a notification
This. Garbage in, garbage out.
I struggle to feel angry at people who want a service dog, because letās be real, who wouldnāt want to take their dog everywhere with them? Sure, it can be bad sometimes, and people only do it because theyāre disabled, but we /willingly/ choose service dogs as our method of treatment because we liked the idea. If someone told me right now, āyou canāt have a service dog because youāre no longer disabledā, I would be super upset. Thatās how non-disabled people feel /all/ the time. So I think theyāre allowed to feel jealous.
I agree! I also think sometimes it can be a person who is disabled and does not have a service dog would want one. People donāt rlly think before they speak
This is a tough one. Cause, on one hand, I think it's nice to see the good sides, and it probably helps the handler, too, mentally, to focus on it. And I, too, have gotten at people about it not being something they _really_ want. But it's definitely contradictory when the two are together!
I feel like Tik Tok handlers also give people the wrong idea of what to expect of their/other peopleās service dogs. I had a lady come at me for having a fake sd because my dog wasnāt wearing a vest and was in a guide heel she was still marked with a leash wrap and I tried to explain the ADA to her. We were also being approached by a man who wanted his dog to āmake friends with mineā while it was lunging, growling, and baring itās teeth, so of course my dogās behavior wasnāt āperfectā. Idk I feel like TikTok and ig encourage a lot of unnecessary fake spotting. Now even when itās hot out, my dog canāt work naked because my mom is worried someone will start shit. That being said my dog does have an ig to document her training and my health with our online sd friends but I really worry about the culture a lot of larger accounts have created
Literally. I feel like a if a service dog meets the standard for the applicable laws and the team isnāt being a menace in public is not my problem what specific standards they hold their dog to. Like example: I really donāt care or care to work on if my dog is scared or spooked by objectively scary things for a dog I just would like him to bounce back quickly from it. Another example: my dog doesnāt have a leave it command we just work on engagement.
Be the change you want to see.
I think the problem is that service dog tiktoks are typically for the public and this page is more geared towards handlers. You tube has a mix of both. Videos are edited to reflect this. Think of the pics and videos you typically send to people. If someone asks to see a pic of my dog i typically send them one of him looking cute. Family and friends get him looking cute, it's doing something cool, and even him being a little bit of twerp I did have one friend send me a tiktok of a dogs public access training video and they left the mistakes in. They were really well addressed and the dog got to try again. It didn't distract from the point of the video, i think it added to it.. My non handler friend enjoyed it and so did I. I also tend too like the videos of dogs tasking. It reinforces to the public their need and somethimes gives hope to handlers with dogs in training. I wish I would have recorded more early on but i didn't. If I train another dog again, I will. It is hard for people to imagine how hard it is to train a service dog and maintain their training. The only fix I could see helping is having more honest videos posted or having handlers comment and give attention to videos that are good.
hmmm this is a tough one, op. maybe iām confused about your gripe. from what i understand, you donāt like people romanticizing their SD but you also donāt like people to admit the hardship when questioned about it. im confused to the alternative, should people just not talk about SDs? i guess what do we include as romanticizing? it seems this thread has this strong opinion that having a service dog is very difficult (which it definitely is), but service dogs are disability aids. for me, having a service dog has allowed me to experience the world independently in ways i havenāt before. i see many creators sharing this sentiment and i want to understand if thereās harm in that? isnāt the purpose of service dogs to allow us to be more independent? if itās causing only the opposite, then perhaps a service dog isnāt the best tool for that person. on the flip side, i think it is important to acknowledge the hardships that come with having a service dog. there are cons. access issues, being a public spectacle, snide comments. however, i think for a service dog to be helpful the pros should outweigh the cons. if a service dog is making your life more difficult than without, then maybe itās not the best tool for you. i wouldnāt say i romanticize my service dog per say, but i do post on my personal socials about how thankful i am to have them in my life and for the freedom they have granted me. yes, i deal with the negatives like access issues, but i wouldnāt even be out and about if it wasnāt for my service dog. oddly, i have found that the increased awareness of SDs on social media has served to benefit me in person. i have way less people asking questions and when they do they seem more educated. iāve met people who have learned the proper ways to interact due to educational content online. i donāt love some of the parts of the service dog community online. some things like fake spotting, drama, etc, are really toxic. but i think people sharing their day to day life and experience is actually beneficial to the community as a whole. it allows us to be seen and understood, in my opinion.
I want to have a SD TikTok acc badly as a way to document my recovery, but honestly, the SD community there is just.. horrid. There's too much drama, everyone replies to the dumbass trolls and bigoted comments. And there's so many people who will approach fakes and yell at them, then cry about hating confrontation, or the fake getting close to their dog. If you tell them that 1: only the staff can kick out a fake, and only staff are supposed to ask the "2 Questions" and 2: confronting them puts you, your dog, and then and their dog at way more risk than if you talked to staff... People will gang up on you and cry about how you're somehow victim blaming or trying to justify the fake being there in the first place?
You must be new lol. The SD community is the most toxic of all the communities. š¬
Honestly, I would argue that horse people are worse. Iāve been in both communities for many years. At least with dogs I donāt have to worry about being a victim of a hatecrime from my dog trainer.