Service Dog Scams

So there is a lot of service dog scams out there both in terms of fakers faking and in terms of people taking advantage of the rubes. One of the biggest is with many of these private training agencies promising for tens of thousands of dollars to train a great service dog who will alert to allergens, function as a tie down for your autistic kid, completely mitigate a real disability, and predict lottery numbers to boot. Sadly for many most of these folks the story doesn't match the reality.

So to those in need of a service dog and somehow stumble across this blog I would implore you to stop and realistically consider what you need out of a service dog and come up with a realistic strategy on kicking the tires before paying someone a downpayment for a house to get a service dog.

You need an idea of what you truly need in a service dog. These will be your dog's tasks. You need to understand that while service dogs are great they are not magical, they are in fact trained animals. Some stay trained better than others. Some put up with unreasonable requests more so than others. You need to realize that there are far more organizations fully willing to take your money and supply you with a shoddy trained dog than organizations that are skilled enough and with enough record to produce dogs for any kind of money.

A service dog trainer should be able to supply references to dogs they have trained and people they have trained for. They should know how long their dogs stay working. They should have a plan for dogs that must be retired. They should know that dogs they place are healthy and will reasonably remain healthy. They should never promise more than they can train for, such as medical alert dogs. Most dogs will not obtain accurate seizure or diabetic alerts no matter how well they are trained.

A service dog should be able to be trained to tasks and then the program needs to devote time to train the handler to handle and upkeep the training of that dog. They will have a hard measure of success and should have ongoing support for handling. They will not promise the moon.They will give you a reasonable estimate of the time your dog will likely have before you have to seek a new dog. Service dogs sadly don't live forever and certainly can't work forever depending on their tasks.


Service dogs are not pets but they can retire to become pets. Far too many people forget that and let their dog's training go in leau of slacking on the couch or dog park.Far too few suppliers insist upon or supply ongoing training support.

Buyer beware, buyer beware, buyer beware. You are searching a market far too willing to take your money and deliver nothing with no repercussions to the contrary.