Some States and Service Dogs in Training

Some US states have some peculiar laws when talking about service dogs in training (SDiT) in public access situations.

Service Dogs in Training are not covered by federal law or guidelines here in the United States. Most states have taken that slack up and written their own laws for those dogs that are still in training. In most instances the statute is pretty easy and simply gives any SDiT in training the same public access as a fully trained service dog.

There are a few states that have made it a little tougher than simply saying that a dog is an SDiT and being allowed the same public access as a service dog.

In Georgia, where I am from, is one of those states. If you want to take a service dog in training into a "non-pet" friendly area there are a few hurdles you have to jump.

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• Such dog is being held on a leash and is under the control of the person raising such dog for an accredited school for seeing eye, hearing, service, or guide dogs.
• Such person has on his or her person and available for inspection credentials from the accredited school for which the dog is being raised; and
• Such dog is wearing a collar, leash, or other appropriate apparel or device that identifies such dog with the accredited school for which such dog is being raised.

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While sites, mine is one of them, show that SDiT are allowed it is very important to read through the law. The keywords for Georgia's law are "accredited school for which the dog is being raised". If you are owner training and not affiliated with one of the "accredited" you do not have public access rights.

As state laws are for specific states when you cross over a border you must be able to conform to that state's law, if you do not it can be shown that you are in violation of the law.
Georgia is not the only state with laws like this. Tennessee and several others have laws like Georgia that use much the same language.

Accredited School (Trainer)

This is always my question, who are the state-accredited schools or trainers? Georgia, only recently published a web page with several service dog companies, but one can only assume that those are the groups that Georgia has accredited.

To me, this accreditation makes some sense. It allows the active training of service dogs within the public sector while slowing down a lot of people that think about putting an SDiT vest on their pet so they can parade them around in public. However, I will also concede it makes things much harder for owner/trainers when they want to start public access training.

How can Fix This or Should We?

I covered this in another article "SDiT?". The ADA requirements are pretty lax now. I think this may have been done so that they did not have to address service dogs in training, among other things. Basically, the ADA only has 3 rules (in a nutshell).

• Dog maintained under control.
• Dog is housebroken.
• Dog is task trained to mitigate its handler's disability.

So, if the handler has those covered why even use the term "service dog in training"? An owner-trainer can do all the above rather quickly in a home setting and pet-friendly setting easily. Why should we make things harder by placing a tag on our dog only to put ourselves in a spot that creates even more problems?

I have talked to several handlers headed out on a flight to vacation only to have their animal refused as they either had an SDiT vest on or said that the dog was a service dog in training. The airline would be correct, in my opinion, in turning the dog away as there is no such thing as a service dog in training in the federal guidelines.