When it comes to best friends, dogs truly live up to their name as ‘man’s best friend’. It is true of all dogs but when it comes to service dogs, they deserve even more love and respect. K-9 officers are considered to be the elite and they may be given access to areas that other dogs are not given. The same is also true of other service dogs.
Generally speaking, service dogs can be trained to assist those who have various disorders and medical conditions. They are on duty when they are wearing their bright vests. Some of those vests may even have specific information to help you know what to do or what not to do, such as ‘Service Dog on Duty’ or ‘Do Not Pet’. They show a level of discipline that is unmatched when it comes to being around crowds of people.
There is one particular instance, however, in which a service dog who was trained to help a human who had seizures stepped up to the plate in an amazing way. The problem was, not everybody knows how to respond to a call for help from one of those service dogs when an emergency takes place. The woman in this story decided to educate the public about what happened when she fell down one day.
She shared the following on Tumblr: “If a service dog without a person approaches you, it means the person is down and in need of help.” She had fallen down and her service dog did what they were supposed to do. They went off to look for somebody who could help. The issue was, he was attempting to get the help of one woman who was swatting him and telling him to go away.
Source: Flickr | U.S. Secretary of Defense
What she has to say is clear. Service dogs should be taken seriously and if they come to you with no owner attached to the other end of the leash, there may be a good reason. She added:
“Don’t get scared, don’t get annoyed, follow the dog! If it had been an emergency situation, I could have vomited and choked, I could have hit my head, I could have had so many things happen to me. We’re going to update his training so if the first person doesn’t cooperate, he moves on, but seriously guys. If what’s-his-face could understand that lassie wanted him to go to the well, you can figure out that a dog in a vest proclaiming it a service dog wants you to follow him.”
Do you know what to do if a service dog approaches you without a person?
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) June 19, 2018
A PSA for service dogs is going viral after a story was posted on Twitter. @TODAYPuppy’s trainer, Olivia, answers common questions. #OrangeRoom pic.twitter.com/lGQg8162f2
Her post really hit a chord with other readers. Almost 100,000 people shared, liked or responded to the announcement. The message was even shared on the Today Show twitter webpage and they had a short program that they ran on live television. They demonstrated how these dogs may ask for help and Olivia, a live trainer explained it to the audience.
“In general, if you see the dog in-vest, without a person attached to it, follow them,” she explained. As for what you can do help, the trainer explained that there aren’t any verbal secret words to tell the dog; “You might just say ‘what’ or ‘where’ or just start moving. You just start to go then follow them where they go.”
What is a trained task? Do you have examples?#ADAGuideDogChat #ServiceDog #Guidedog#InternationalGuideDogDay pic.twitter.com/CskF7WT6we
— Guide Dog Foundation (@GuideDogFdn) April 23, 2019