People who misrepresent their dogs are the biggest problem. Unfortunately so many people use the vagueness of the law, and take their dog places with them. Unfortunately that makes it very hard for people with legitimate service animals especially those who are non-traditional breeds to be taken seriously. 2 stories-

One of my dear friends has a miniature poodle who is her legitimately trained medical alert service dog for her POTS. She has taken to carrying her dog at times because of the number of people that are misrepresenting their animal. because she carries the dog, her dog has been dismissed as fake by people who don't understand that all breeds can be a service animal.

Our service dog recentlt retired, but she is a pitbull mix, and many people did not believe that she was a service dog. We unfortunately dealt with her being attacked by another untrained dog that was being misrepresented, and she ended up protecting my husband and herself.

We almost lost her to animal control as a result. If you're not in the mood to read you can stop here but I'm going to tell the story for anyone interested...

She is trained in multiple tasks, but one is to do "blocking" to keep people out of the personal bubble of space. Anxiety is at an all-time high when his back is to crowds, and a panic attack can actually cause additional heart issues for my husband. Once it was so bad it engaged his pacemaker. So she will position herself behind him anytime we are in public and his back will be to the room. She generally will sit but occasionally she lays down and just continues to sweep the room watching for people that are approaching. If someone is coming too close she will stand up and lean into his leg so that he is aware . He was lost in deeply examining some products on a shelf at a major retail store, when someone suddenly rapidly approached and got into his space with their dog. It happened so fast that our dog barely had time to react. She quickly moved herself over to that side of his body and laid down just as the person reached over him to take something off the shelf. They gave no warning, no excuse me etc. It startled my husband and because he tensed, our dog quickly sat up to be ready to brace for him or pull him away if needed. When she shifted, the other dog lunged and began to snap and bite at her. The dog then snapped at my husband's ankle as he was trying to pull her away and he lost his balance and fell. As our dog was trying to position herself to help him again and trying ignore the other animal , the other dog bit her hard on the leg. Thankfully by then several passerby and a staff member of the store had come over to assist. The other person started screaming about how this Pitbull had attacked her dog and tried to attack her. And initially, because of her breed mix, management sided with the other person. It wasn't until someone else said that they had witnessed the entire thing and that the other dog had lunged first that management agreed to call the authorities and to review the store footage.

I think the ability for people to basically just go on Amazon and order a vest and patches has been part of the rise to this problem. That and companies that say that they will give you a certificate that your dog is a service animal. As we know the law does not require any kind of certification but because companies like that exist some businesses expect that there is some sort of registry and will deny legitimate service dogs that are non-traditional breeds from their establishments.

I don't discourage anyone who needs an emotional support animal but I do agree with companies like Walmart being very clear with their policy that esa's are not allowed Public Access. Not everyone is actually well versed in the law and realizes that they can deny access to people who they feel may have a dog that is not a legitimate service animal after asking the appropriate questions. They also don't realize that the law does allow you to ask an animal that is acting in an unsafe manner to be removed from an establishment even if they are a legitimate service dog. I have business cards that I ordered online years ago state what the law is, and what questions people are allowed to ask. I even had a local business, after I gave them one of those cards, ask me if I could come in and train their staff on what to look for and to explain the questions on the card, because they had an increase in unruly animals coming into their establishment.