ML Leigh trains service dogs and was recently at a mall with some of the dogs she is training. A woman and her daughter came up and asked if they could pet the service dogs and one of the trainers said no. Most owners of service animals and those that train them do not let people pet the dogs while they are working. Service dogs wears vests that show they are working and some have signs (as in this case) that say, “do not pet.”
The woman that asked to pet the dogs didn’t like that she was told no and confronted the trainers in the video below. She was handed a business card and once she realized the trainer she was talking to was the owner of the company, she wanted to talk to someone at a higher level than her. When the owner said there wasn’t anyone above her since she was the owner of the business the woman said she would call her attorney because she was being filmed without her permission.
From ML Leigh’s facebook post:
Had this crazy experience yesterday at the mall where some lady asked if she could pet the dogs. People ask us all the time so I just said, “no.” All the dogs are working so it’s my go to answer. And they walked away. No big deal right? This lady went out of her way to come back with her child and yell at us for saying “no” and for not saying, “nO iM sOrRy ThEy’Re TrAiNiNg.” And we should “have a sign or something.” You mean the 20 patches on my dog that say don’t pet? 🙃 Entitlement these days is real. They even got mall security because we said they couldn’t pet the working dogs. 🙃😂 Security said that the lady was crying 😂 So much harassment for just saying no. This video is public and is shareable. There was no common sense here.