Anywhere or Everywhere

From Service Dog Training

If you have a service dog, you have most likely had someone exclaim to you “It must be so nice to be able to take your dog with you everywhere!” This statement has always confused me; as a dog owner for many years prior to getting a service dog, I’d never felt a particularly compelling desire to bring my pets out in public with me, and as a service dog user there have been situations where I wish I didn’t need to have my dog with me. I think I finally may have figured out this common exclamation …it’s a question of vocabulary.

As a service dog user, I take my dog almost everywhere. The dog is my chosen mobility device, so I don’t really have the option of leaving him at home very often without running the risk that the high level of working behavior expected of him as a service dog will begin to diminish. So, my dog goes with me pretty much everywhere, school, the grocery store, the movies, even those times and places when it it’s not terribly convenient to have a dog with me, my dog is usually there.

On the other hand, if we imagine a world where dogs were allowed in all public places, owners of non-service dogs could choose to take their dogs with them everywhere too. They would have the option of taking their dog to school with them, or to the grocery store, but the difference is that they would not need to. They would not suffer any inconvenience by not taking their dog, and the average pet dog does not have a level of training that must be maintained by consistent public exposure. In a world like this, I would expect to see people bringing their dogs to a lot more places than they do now, but I think that even the most dedicated pet owners would still choose not bring their dogs into certain situations where service dog users take their dogs regularly. For instance, I don’t think we’d see too many pets (though there would always be the occasional one) in these circumstances:

-Those times when you see service dog users are juggling a dog, an umbrella and a doggy pick-up bag in the pouring rain.

-A rock concert or major sporting event where it is crowded and loud and people want to mill around freely

-A fancy date

-Major business conferences or events

The list could go on, but the point I’m trying to make is this: What pet owners are actually saying when they exclaim to service dog users about the delight of taking a dog everywhere is that they’d like the ability to take their pets where and when it is convenient for them. These people don’t actually want to take their dogs everywhere, or even almost everywhere like service dog users do. What they seem to mean is they’d like the ability to take their dogs anywhere, but when it strikes their fancy to do so.

My guest post at Day In Washington from last week can be found here

--Tiffany Huggard-Lee 07:53, 20 February 2010 (CST)