Airports and airlines have a fake service dog problem

This past month I, like many Americans, flew back home for the holidays. On the first leg of that trip, from New York to Los Angeles, a dog in a “service dog” vest barked at me at the gate. The dog (not its given name), looked to be a stout French bulldog, paced back and forth, and yapped at a couple of other travelers. 

On the way back from LAX, I noticed more dogs in service vests — a dachshund, another (different) Frenchie, a few mixed breeds — in line with their humans, waiting for desk agents. It all made me realize how many dogs traveling these days are designated service dogs, so many that there’s no way each one was a thoroughly-trained working canine. Some of these pooches had to be impostors. 

Granted, because so many people fly during the holidays it was probably easier to spot them; but I’m obviously not the only person who’s noticed the rise of questionable, if not fake service dogs. Their proliferation raises a few questions. 

Why are there so many? Why and how do so many people have them? Is certification that easy to get? Do this many people need them? Why is this one barking at me? Are these people who just want to take their dog on their trip? Does being suspicious of some of them make me awful? Is a fake service dog really that bad?

Sadly, I could not speak to an actual service dog for an interview regarding this contentious subject. But I did talk to experts, flight attendants, and people who train service dogs about how canine service impersonators make their job and the jobs of actual service dogs that much harder. 

Flying with a dog is tough, and a service dog is a loophole 

More and more people want to travel with their pets, and despite airline assurances about safety, owners still harbor some overall worry about traveling with their animals in cargo. They’re also managing the reality that boarding a dog can be expensive and comes with its own set of worries. 

At the same time, traveling in the US with a pet dog in cabin — thanks to a multitude of rules — is actually difficult. Officially, pups must be able to fit in an approved carrier that fits underneath the seat in front of you. They must also be able to turn around in said carrier and must remain zipped up the entire time. If a dog fits all those requirements, it’ll cost roughly $150 per leg of the trip on most major US airlines.

Essentially, there’s a glut of people who want to travel with their dogs, and the only way they can is only available to small ones. Even then, not every small dog is happy to be in a secured carrier. And if there’s any certainty about people, it’s that some of them will find a way to get what they want. 

“I think a lot of people started to take advantage of the fact that we really want our dogs to be with us,” says Jessica Reiss, the program director at Canine Companions, an organization that trains and places service dogs with people living with disabilities. 

At Canine Companions, Labrador retrievers, golden retrievers, and Labrador-golden crosses (goldens and Labradors are two of the “fab four” breeds that experts say excel at becoming service dogs) undergo a six-month training program that includes responding to roughly 45 or so tasks that include opening and closing doors, responding to alarms and alerts, pulling wheelchairs, and item identification. Service dog recipients complete an intensive program as well. 

“In order to place a dog with a person, that person comes in and stays with us for two weeks. They are literally living, breathing, everything with the dog 24 hours a day — [they’re taught] dog behavior, dog body language, how to deal with fear reactivity as the typical dog owner,” Reiss says, listing off just a few things that a person learns in those 14 days. 

While training at Canine Companions is rigorous, programs like it are not the standard. Part of the problem is that there is no standard. 

Reiss explained to me that even though the Department of Transportation has tried to stifle the travelers abusing pet travel (e.g., disallowing emotional support animals) and the US has made service animal designation seemingly stricter, people still find ways to circumvent those restrictions. 

“There’s this loophole that says, you can privately train your dog to be a service dog, and by definition what that means is the dog has to be able to provide tasks that mitigate a person’s disability,” Reiss says. While private training can be more accommodating and accessible (i.e., for those unable to afford a trainer or who don’t have  a trainer close by), it also means that more people take advantage of the lack of regulation.

“There are plenty of owner-trained, well-behaved service dogs, and they are training their dogs to do actual physical tasks, and they should be given access. But I think we’re also talking about a lot of people not wanting to leave their dogs at home,” Reiss says. 

This result is a lot of confusion and lack of consistency. That’s how you get dogs like the barking Frenchy in a service vest that receives the same flying privileges as a dog that Canine Companions bred, socialized, and trained. It’s also why there are so many frustrating anecdotes of “service dogs” misbehaving on planes (and on land too). 

I spoke to a handful of US flight attendants who confirm that they’ve seen an uptick in service dogs on flight. But they consistently noted that beyond paperwork, they’re instructed not to ask owners any questions, even though they might have suspicions about a rowdy, howling husky puppy. One who wished to remain anonymous put it to me this way: “Surely this geriatric Chihuahua is not saving anyone’s life…but it’s not in my job description to verify those things.” 

That said, it’s even more complicated, because no one wants to be a person who treats someone with a disability with suspicion or doubt. How do you distinguish real service dogs from those sneaking in via the loophole without making someone feel attacked or dehumanized?

Who fake service dogs actually hurt

As an owner of a dog small enough to fit as a carry-on, there doesn’t really seem to be any benefit to following the airline rules. Following all the air cabin regulations for dogs costs more (service animals fly for free) and makes flying more claustrophobic (being zipped up in a carrier versus service animals who lay on the cabin floor or on a lap). If the “right” way to get a dog onboard is so arbitrary and unappealing, and the faux way is relatively easier and free, what’s the point in following the rules?

“That’s the thing, the rules don’t even matter,” Molly Carta, a woman living with cerebral palsy who has a service dog named Slate, tells Vox. “I feel that way half the time too. I’m like, why did I pay $50 for this vet visit to get this form filled out? This person over here is just going to walk on with their dog.” 

Carta explained to me that she travels two to three times per year, and has seen the number of service dogs boom in the past decade, with the largest increase coming over the past three to five years. (By law, there is no official registry of service dogs.) Slate, whom she matched with through Canine Companions, is her second service dog, and recently they traveled from Connecticut to Wisconsin and made a connection in Chicago through O’Hare. 

“There were so many other dogs in that airport that it was such a nightmare to even just get from our gate to the next gate,” she tells me, noting that multiple dogs tried to interact with, bark at, and approach Slate. While Slate is trained to maintain focus, stay put, and stay calm during flights, distractions make his job in assisting Carta harder — possibly inhibiting his ability to help her during an emergency. Carta, who uses a scooter and a walker, explains that this also puts an ample amount of unnecessary stress on Slate. 

“If I’m going somewhere with a bunch of friends, a lot of times I won’t travel with him because it’s probably not worth the stress. If I know I have a bunch of people around that can help me in the same ways that he would,” Carta says. 

Carta also often worries about where she’s placed on a plane. In her experience, people with disabilities and service dogs are seated in the bulkheads. Hypothetically, if there’s multiple people with service dogs, who gets that seat? And will there be multiple dogs in that row? 

Carta having doubts about taking her service dog with her traveling sure seems like a failure of rules meant to help her and other people living with disabilities. She also mentioned that she tends to feel like she’s on the defensive because of people questioning whether Slate is an actual service dog — likely due to their prior experiences with unruly pups and people abusing the privilege. But unless people know someone like Carta in their lives, it’s hard to connect how her experience would be impacted by someone thinking they’re harmlessly fudging the rules. 

For a long time, Carta believed that educating people about how service dogs are a medical need was the answer. But the more and more time that passes, the more she’s realized that more public awareness doesn’t work if people aren’t willing to listen. And while Carta hopes for legislation, untangling the knot of service animals without doing more damage to the people who need them is tricky too, now that so many people have abused the loophole. 

“I don’t know what that legislation would look like, but maybe something that dissuades people from taking away from those of us that really need service dogs,” Carta says. “It’s about recognizing that they are a medical need.”

Perhaps the most difficult obstacle to overcome is plain individual selfishness. It’s hard to put other people ahead of yourself, especially in a situation as miserable as air travel, and taking your dog on vacation seems harmless enough. In that moment, no one is thinking about any kind of social contract or how their accompanying pooch could affect someone else down the line. Teaching someone that kind of empathy is something a dog, service or not, can’t even do.