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Here’s What You Should Do If A Service Dog Approaches You Without Its Owner
When it comes to service dogs, many of us lack knowledge about how to properly act near them. So one Tumblr user decided to share her story and educate people on what you’re supposed to do if a service dog approaches you.
Tessa C. took to social media to share a story about how her dog Raider was seeking a stranger’s attention after his owner fell, yet the stranger told Raider to go away. Dog mistook Tessa’s fall for a seizure, but luckily she only accidentally tripped. Nevertheless, her message shows how important it is to know how to act near a service dog.
“I’ve had Raider for 2 ½ years, and originally he was supposed to be for my autism. About 4-5 months ago, however, I was diagnosed with epilepsy. Never had a seizure before, and suddenly I had 3 in as many months. Training for epilepsy is… Trickier. He’s learning though, and it should only be a couple of months until he’s fully ready to assist me.” Tessa told Bored Panda.
In her PSA she told people how important it is to follow the service dog if he approaches you since it means that the dog’s owner is in danger. “For now, I’ve decided to purchase a patch saying “If I am alone, follow me!”, and hope that spurs a better reaction”, Tessa said. “I do most of the training on my own, with a local trainer that comes in every week or two to give me directions on how to proceed.”
Scroll down to read Tessa’s story yourself, and don’t forget to tell us what you think in the comments!
More info: lumpatronics
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Not along ago Tessa was diagnosed with epilepsy, “Never had a seizure before, and suddenly I had 3 in as many months”
Image credits: Tessa C.
So she started training her dog to help her in case of an emergency
Image credits: Tessa C.
“I do most of the training on my own, with a local trainer that comes in every week or two to give me directions on how to proceed”
Image credits: Tessa C.
Tessa is planning to purchase a patch for Raider that says “If I am alone, follow me!”, so this story wouldn’t repeat itself
Image credits: Tessa C.
Many people reacted to Tessa’s story
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What do you think ?
rena 7 years ago
https://twitter.com/vavroom/status/1009067707503923200 "The girl who originally wrote that was posting on her Tumblr. It transpires that she was training her own dog, a family pet dog Mastiff. Who has since been deemed not appropriate for that kind of work (doh!). She does/did not know about proper service dog behaviour. A service dog "fetching" help for their human would STAY with the human and bark until help arrives. Someone I know even trained her dog to speed dial 911 on the home phone for situations like that. Not go and get someone."
BoredDragonfly 7 years ago
Like What is said, this makes sense. I did find it strange she was/is training her dog all alone, only with someone who helps every other week or so. These dogs need to be trained properly!! I already knew you need to ignore a service dog. But after reading the article and if a service dog came up to me without it's owner, from now on I would definitely follow the dog, of course without touching him etc. But I guess this won't happen (often) though. I hope all service dogs are trained better than this one. And I hope she will let her dog get proper training! That would be far more safe than what happened in this article on BP. (Haven't read the article of the comment yet). Like was said, she could have vomited and choked or other things could have happened. So I hope the dog learns to never let her alone. And learn other better(!) solutions when something like this happens. But I will take this information with me anyway!
Load More Replies...
Ellis 7 years ago
"If a service dog without a person approaches you, it means the person is down and in need of help", I thought this was common sense...?
Cassie 7 years ago
I didn't know this specifically, but I still would have been concerned about a service dog without a person and probably would have tried to find his person.
Load More Replies...
Jack Reno 7 years ago
There are real service dogs and then there are b******t service dogs that neurotics rig up with fake shirts so they can take their dogs where they wish. It's important to call out the b******t dogs so that real service dogs are taken seriously, but do most people do that? Noooooooo.
Nancy Seton 7 years ago
While I agree with people saying most of us are taught to leave working service pets alone, the very least you can do if it comes to you alone is see if you can figure out if something is wrong or not. You can do it without touching the pet, so you can do it without taking it's focus off his work. If nothings up, you can still easily let it go.
Lisa Shaw 4 years ago
I have personal experience with this, we have a gentleman living in our neighbourhood who has remissive MS and a seizure disorder. Someone came walking down the street with his service dog on a leash claiming they found him and wanted to know if anyone recognized him, I know Peter and his human Steve. I asked the woman where the leash came from (Steve has thousands of hours of off leash training and does not walk on a leash) and she said she found him "wandering around", so she put him on a leash. I informed her that is a service dog without his human, took the leash off and asked Peter to show me where his human is, we followed him back to Steve's place and found Steve pinned under an arch welder with crushing injuries and called 911 for ambulance and rescue assistance. The dog was wearing his vest, he has a badge on it that says "if I am alone, follow me" and this less than smart neighbour was going to turn him over to the pound.
deborah darsie 7 years ago
In response to a number of the below comments - That is not necessarily correct. There are a few mobility dogs with wheelchair using handlers which acted with "intelligent disobedience" and ran to a known neighbor's porch, to bring the neighbor to help her handler return to her wheelchair. Another trained behavior is the retrieval of an emergency phone in the home or the cell phone, so their person can call for help. Even more interesting is a special "911" button in the home which the dog will press with its nose or paw. Professionally trained service dogs are impressive. Poorly selected dogs - temperament, age, socialization, etc. tend to be a riskier proposition.
Caroline Driver 7 years ago
If someone was nervous of dogs and freakin' Mastiff turned up beside them and started acting a bit odd (for a dog), it's not surprising that they might try to get rid of it! If it was a Lab, probably a better reception.
pusheen buttercup 7 years ago
wow, you can train a dog to dial 911?! I wonder if the officers would even understand if they heard the dog barking into the phone... maybe you can teach them to bark SOS in morse code. I'm not joking btw, I wonder if that's possible
Kip The Otter 6 years ago
It probably is, I know you can teach a dog to bark on command so maybe you could tell them SOS! And they'd dial 911 and bark out SOS? Dogs are pretty smart and if you reward them after they do the task then they would do it, just like if you were teaching them to sit. The only thing is during training you would have to explain to the dispatcher why they were called.
Load More Replies...
rena 7 years ago
https://twitter.com/vavroom/status/1009067707503923200 "The girl who originally wrote that was posting on her Tumblr. It transpires that she was training her own dog, a family pet dog Mastiff. Who has since been deemed not appropriate for that kind of work (doh!). She does/did not know about proper service dog behaviour. A service dog "fetching" help for their human would STAY with the human and bark until help arrives. Someone I know even trained her dog to speed dial 911 on the home phone for situations like that. Not go and get someone."
BoredDragonfly 7 years ago
Like What is said, this makes sense. I did find it strange she was/is training her dog all alone, only with someone who helps every other week or so. These dogs need to be trained properly!! I already knew you need to ignore a service dog. But after reading the article and if a service dog came up to me without it's owner, from now on I would definitely follow the dog, of course without touching him etc. But I guess this won't happen (often) though. I hope all service dogs are trained better than this one. And I hope she will let her dog get proper training! That would be far more safe than what happened in this article on BP. (Haven't read the article of the comment yet). Like was said, she could have vomited and choked or other things could have happened. So I hope the dog learns to never let her alone. And learn other better(!) solutions when something like this happens. But I will take this information with me anyway!
Load More Replies... Ellis 7 years ago
"If a service dog without a person approaches you, it means the person is down and in need of help", I thought this was common sense...?
Cassie 7 years ago
I didn't know this specifically, but I still would have been concerned about a service dog without a person and probably would have tried to find his person.
Load More Replies... Jack Reno 7 years ago
There are real service dogs and then there are b******t service dogs that neurotics rig up with fake shirts so they can take their dogs where they wish. It's important to call out the b******t dogs so that real service dogs are taken seriously, but do most people do that? Noooooooo.
Nancy Seton 7 years ago
While I agree with people saying most of us are taught to leave working service pets alone, the very least you can do if it comes to you alone is see if you can figure out if something is wrong or not. You can do it without touching the pet, so you can do it without taking it's focus off his work. If nothings up, you can still easily let it go.
Lisa Shaw 4 years ago
I have personal experience with this, we have a gentleman living in our neighbourhood who has remissive MS and a seizure disorder. Someone came walking down the street with his service dog on a leash claiming they found him and wanted to know if anyone recognized him, I know Peter and his human Steve. I asked the woman where the leash came from (Steve has thousands of hours of off leash training and does not walk on a leash) and she said she found him "wandering around", so she put him on a leash. I informed her that is a service dog without his human, took the leash off and asked Peter to show me where his human is, we followed him back to Steve's place and found Steve pinned under an arch welder with crushing injuries and called 911 for ambulance and rescue assistance. The dog was wearing his vest, he has a badge on it that says "if I am alone, follow me" and this less than smart neighbour was going to turn him over to the pound.
deborah darsie 7 years ago
In response to a number of the below comments - That is not necessarily correct. There are a few mobility dogs with wheelchair using handlers which acted with "intelligent disobedience" and ran to a known neighbor's porch, to bring the neighbor to help her handler return to her wheelchair. Another trained behavior is the retrieval of an emergency phone in the home or the cell phone, so their person can call for help. Even more interesting is a special "911" button in the home which the dog will press with its nose or paw. Professionally trained service dogs are impressive. Poorly selected dogs - temperament, age, socialization, etc. tend to be a riskier proposition.
Caroline Driver 7 years ago
If someone was nervous of dogs and freakin' Mastiff turned up beside them and started acting a bit odd (for a dog), it's not surprising that they might try to get rid of it! If it was a Lab, probably a better reception.
pusheen buttercup 7 years ago
wow, you can train a dog to dial 911?! I wonder if the officers would even understand if they heard the dog barking into the phone... maybe you can teach them to bark SOS in morse code. I'm not joking btw, I wonder if that's possible
Kip The Otter 6 years ago
It probably is, I know you can teach a dog to bark on command so maybe you could tell them SOS! And they'd dial 911 and bark out SOS? Dogs are pretty smart and if you reward them after they do the task then they would do it, just like if you were teaching them to sit. The only thing is during training you would have to explain to the dispatcher why they were called.
Load More Replies... 
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