(Lander, WY)—For lack of a better description, we’re going to call it “drive-by petting” – you likely don’t know what that is, but it’s possible you are an offender, and this newly coined action is all too familiar to at least one Lander resident and service dog.
After starting public access to her service dog, Talia, in January 2024, Doreen Calvert has experienced people petting her German Shepherd without asking, even though she has used various versions of service dog ware.
34 people in one day walked up and petted Talia, she tallied.
Seated in the back corner of the Oxbow in Lander, County 10 sat down with Doreen and Talia to discuss drive-by pettings and why folks should ask before touching someone else’s dog, service dog or not.
“I try to be nice about it by saying, ‘Please don’t pet her,'” Doreen said about people randomly petting Talia in stores and on the streets. “What do you do?”
Doreen owner trained Talia to be a service dog for her disability, which, according to the American Disabilities Act, is perfectly fine.
Service dogs are defined as those trained to perform a task directly related to a person’s disability. They are not required to be certified or undergo a professional training program. They are also not required to wear a vest or other ID that indicates they’re a service dog.
“I’m capable of doing it,” she said about owner training. “And I didn’t feel right taking a spot from someone that can’t.”
Instead of a vest, which tended to overheat Talia, she wears a service dog patch on her collar.
The ADA website also clarifies that a service animal is not “emotional support or comfort dogs, because providing emotional support or comfort is not a task related to a person’s disability.”
It is also a misdemeanor to misrepresent a service animal, according to Wyoming HB0114, which was enacted in 2017.
“Any person who knowingly and intentionally misrepresents that an animal is a service animal or an assistance animal for the purpose of obtaining any of the rights or privileges set forth in this article is guilty of a misdemeanor and may be fined not more than seven hundred fifty dollars ($750.00).”
The rights or privileges mentioned above include “full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities and privileges of any place of public accommodation and any other place to which the general public is invited.”
Any person intentionally interfering with those rights or privileges is guilty of a misdemeanor and may be fined not more than seven hundred fifty dollars ($750.00).
It’s easy to want to show affection to every dog you see in public, especially the well-trained service dogs. However, it can be detrimental to pet them, according to the US Service Animals website.
Petting them is distracting to the dog who is providing assistance; you risk injury to their handler since the dog could miss an alert while distracted; and as the US Service Animals website put it, it’s just rude.
“I know she’s beautiful, but ignore the pretty dog,” Doreen said about Talia.
