Spend 1000 bucks for what? Sounds like you’ll just have re-train again and again. Seems to me a service dog isn’t for you since watching it interact with others has a negative effect on you.
Yes, ppl are wrong, but how can you stop tjem?
Service dogs are NOT supposed to interract with other people when they are working, that is the whole damn POINT of a service dog!!! They are trained to focus on their task of helping their owner, they are not to become distracted by other things.
And people with anxiety, especially social anxiety and PTSD, are going to become very uncomfortable when people interact with their dogs because it forces unwanted awkward interaction with that person! And it comes with the risk of said person becoming volatile when told they can’t pet the animal.
If she’s not working, and she’s off her vest, I don’t mind if she interracts with people, but she is not supposed to on the job and people are supposed to leave her alone.
It wasn’t just people interracting that messed her up, her previous owner barely brought her outside and she was abused in various ways that has left her unsure of what her purpose is because she was left like that for so long.
When she was given to me, she had some problems, but they got worse as more people interacted with her because she wasn’t used to it any more and people wouldn’t listen to me when I told them to leave her alone.
You don’t go up to people in wheelchairs and touch and play with their wheelchairs without asking, just as a wheelchair is an extension of themselves a service dog is an extension of their owner. Except unlike a wheelchair, a service dog can be damaged by said interactions, on top of it putting stress on the owner.
If she gets proper retraining and is used the right way I’m sure she’ll be fine, she just has to relearn years of stuff she forgot.
I think MOST service dog owners get stressed when people interact with their dogs. The people who let people pet their ‘service dogs’ very likely do not have REAL service dogs and are just masquerading their precious spoiled rotten pets or emotional support animals as service animals and it gives a bad impression to people about real service dogs.
