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.

Key takeaways

• More and more Americans are claiming service dogs on flights, and many are using that designation — a necessity for some people living with disabilities — as a loophole to just fly with their dogs.
  
• The problem is that untrained service dogs can be a nuisance to fellow travelers, but also could possibly inhibit actual service dogs from doing the crucial tasks (i.e., untrained dogs can distract service dogs).
  
• Because there’s a lack of regulation, there are a lot of people abusing the system — but it’s difficult to enact stricter rules while making sure it’s not inhibiting people living with disabilities.

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

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