My dog is a very good dog. Strangers stop in their tracks to meet him. Coffee shops, wine stores, and doormen hand out treats when he visits. He smiles. My dog, with his wide, caramel, human-like eyes, hypoallergenic fur, and drawer of seasonal and themed bandanas would never cause a problem.
I'm sure that's what everyone with a dog thinks about their own best friend, but the unleashing of a pro-dog culture over the past decade has spiraled out of control. It seems dogs are everywhere. The number of households that own dogs has jumped from 35 million in 1991 to 60 million in 2024, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association. To get around restrictions on planes, trains, and in stores, some owners are buying certificates and ID tags from websites that claim to let you "take your working dog anywhere without the hassle." For about $70 and with a few clicks, I was able to register my 22-pound cavapoo, Charlie, who has more anxiety than I do, as a service dog, then spent a few days over the past week toting him around New York.
Charlie is the kind of pampered pet that would have you roll your eyes and think, "that is obviously not a service dog" if you spotted him at the airline check-in counter. But an ID card and certificate arrived in the mail days later. Had I paid about $80 more, the company would have thrown in a red service dog vest, along with a collar and leash that identified him as a working dog. Other sites charge some $300 for a full suite of ID cards, service dog wear, and letters certifying the dog is needed for emotional support. To sign up, I didn't have to specify what disability Charlie would aid or provide any documentation that he had been trained. It was an instant solution to the pesky "no dogs allowed" signs on storefronts.
But these certificates are meaningless, experts tell me. There's no licensing process for service dogs, although there are reputable organizations and trainers that work with dogs for up to two years to make them ready to help people with disabilities, and an organization that accredits nonprofits that train dogs. There are also people who self-train their own service dogs. The Americans with Disabilities Act stipulates service dogs are those "individually trained to do work or perform tasks for people with disabilities." Emotional support animals don't make the cut, and don't have the same rights to access public spaces as service dogs do. Retail workers, and transportation staff who encounter dogs in red vests can ask the handler only if they need the dog for a disability, and what tasks the dog has been trained to do. The ADA prohibits them from asking what disability a person has or requiring any medical information, identification cards, or training documentation for the dog.
"There's no federal registration, there's no database — none of this makes any legal difference," says Rebecca Wisch, associate editor of the Animal Legal and Historical Center at Michigan State University. But the sparse wording of the ADA that regulates service dogs, and a flurry of social media posts about how to bring your dog anywhere, has created mass confusion around the rules. The registration sites may be "capitalizing on some of that confusion," Wisch says.
When any pet can be passed off as a service dog, it cheapens the work real service dogs are trained to do.
America has fully gone to the dogs. By one estimate, the market for pet clothing is projected to be worth nearly $10 billion by 2034, up from $6 billion in 2025. Dogs are their own influencer category, people pay hundreds a month for fresh dog food subscription services, and some clone dogs to reproduce identical ones in the future. With all this investment, people want and feel entitled to bring their dogs everywhere. Airlines and Amtrak require people to keep pets in carriers and charge additional fees. Some apartments ban all dogs or dogs of certain breeds or weights. Defining an animal as a service dog is the quickest way around those restrictions. Emotional support animals, which aren't trained for specific tasks but make their owner feel better when they're around, don't qualify as service dogs when it comes to public spaces.
Not one person asked me if Charlie was a service dog. I never needed to flash his "ID card." A Trader Joe's employee stopped me — to show me a photo of his own cavapoo. We rode the subway, and walked right into Business Insider's offices, where the security officer in the lobby offered to open a special door for me so that Charlie wouldn't have to cram into the revolving one. Having him at my feet certainly didn't help me or my coworker's productivity, but did make me more popular.
All of this was easy, and I can see how having a service dog badge at the ready would make it even easier to navigate public spaces with a dog. But experts tell me that fake service dogs have upended life for people with real disabilities and real service dogs. In a 2022 survey of 1,500 people who use assistance dogs around the globe conducted by Canine Companions, a nonprofit that trains service dogs, 93% of respondents said they have encountered poorly trained, out-of-control dogs in public. Nearly 80% said such a dog had interfered with their service dog. As more poorly behaved, fake service dogs act up in public, those with real, trained and necessary dogs may face more scrutiny when trying to come into shops and restaurants. "The ADA is very loosely structured language," says Cathy Zemaitis, the chief development and programs officer from NEADS, a nonprofit that trains service dogs. "There are tons of loopholes. And so when there's loopholes, people always take advantage."
Reddit abounds with complaints about fake service dogs. One person wrote of a coworker's dog that "runs all over the office, barks at every visitor that enters our building, begs and sniffs at our food when we're eating lunch." Another wrote about flying from Chicago to Miami and seeing "no less than 12 dogs" on their full flight, two of whom started a fight. "I would be pissed to be missing my international connection because two doofuses were allowed to bring their untrained dogs onto a flight." On TikTok, service dog owners post PSAs about registration sites and the fact that there are no official service dog registries.
I sent multiple emails and made calls to three different websites that claim to register service dogs, and none responded to questions I had about justifications for the registration services they offered. They have names like USA Service Dogs, United Service Dog, and National Service Animal Registry, which at first glance lead someone to believe they connect to an official database. The fine print of USA Service Dogs notes it's not: "USA Service Dogs is an organization providing service dog and emotional support animal registration services and products independent of any government organization," the bottom of its website says. "Registration not required by the ADA." NSAR also notes that "registration isn't a legal requirement, but it has been made very clear that nearly all embarrassing confrontations and hassles are eliminated when you register your animal and make sure it looks like a legitimate service or emotional support animal." United Service Dog's website says it can help you "save hundreds of dollars each year in 'pet fees,'" as service dogs can't be charged additional rent, deposits, or travel prices.
Landlords, airlines, hotels, and stores can't demand proof for a service dog. The Department of Transportation has a form for airlines that requires people to attest that their dog has been trained for a disability, is needed by the person with a disability, and is up-to-date on vaccines. Many airlines and hotels require emotional support animals to travel as pets and subject their owners to pet fees. In theory, an ID card could make it easier for people with real service dogs to avoid a hassle, but the misuse of registration and service dog vests by pet owners may be creating more problems than they would solve.
Most states have cracked down on service dog fraud. Minnesota, Arizona, and New York are among those that make it illegal to misrepresent a pet as a service dog, levying small fines on those who are caught. "I couldn't go into a store or an airport or even an office without seeing some disorderly four-legged creature dragging its owner around, wearing a vest that said 'service animal,'" Republican Arizona state Sen. John Kavanagh, who sponsored the Arizona bill, told NBC News in 2018. "I would see people in the supermarkets with animals in the shopping cart or walking around sniffing all the food."
The laws are mostly deterrents to bad dog-owner behavior, says Wisch. And particularly in New York City, they don't seem to be deterring many. The rules typically carry minor penalties, and not everyone working in hospitality or retail even knows what they can or cannot ask about service dogs. Workers who kick a dog out of a restaurant or store risks ejecting a real service dog, and discriminating against a person with disabilities.
There's no easy fix to the fake service dog problem. Some service dogs NEADS trained have been retired after having a bad interaction with fake service dogs in public spaces. Businesses are questioning how they're supposed to react to poorly trained dogs but still accommodate real service dogs. Creating an official training and licensing system for service dogs might undermine people who train their own dogs. Maintaining a database of all service dogs is likely a task too unwieldy for a government body to easily tackle. An official registration, Wisch says, "feels like that would nearly be an impossible task" to establish.
Charlie's first day of work was also his last. His best skill was finding the camera during a photoshoot for this story, but he lacks the right demeanor to spend his days in the office — he creates mass distraction by being too friendly. Like many dogs, Charlie is best off and happiest as a pet with no job.
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I'm sure that's what everyone with a dog thinks about their own best friend, but the unleashing of a pro-dog culture over the past decade has spiraled out of control. It seems dogs are everywhere. The number of households that own dogs has jumped from 35 million in 1991 to 60 million in 2024, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association. To get around restrictions on planes, trains, and in stores, some owners are buying certificates and ID tags from websites that claim to let you "take your working dog anywhere without the hassle." For about $70 and with a few clicks, I was able to register my 22-pound cavapoo, Charlie, who has more anxiety than I do, as a service dog, then spent a few days over the past week toting him around New York.
Charlie is the kind of pampered pet that would have you roll your eyes and think, "that is obviously not a service dog" if you spotted him at the airline check-in counter. But an ID card and certificate arrived in the mail days later. Had I paid about $80 more, the company would have thrown in a red service dog vest, along with a collar and leash that identified him as a working dog. Other sites charge some $300 for a full suite of ID cards, service dog wear, and letters certifying the dog is needed for emotional support. To sign up, I didn't have to specify what disability Charlie would aid or provide any documentation that he had been trained. It was an instant solution to the pesky "no dogs allowed" signs on storefronts.
But these certificates are meaningless, experts tell me. There's no licensing process for service dogs, although there are reputable organizations and trainers that work with dogs for up to two years to make them ready to help people with disabilities, and an organization that accredits nonprofits that train dogs. There are also people who self-train their own service dogs. The Americans with Disabilities Act stipulates service dogs are those "individually trained to do work or perform tasks for people with disabilities." Emotional support animals don't make the cut, and don't have the same rights to access public spaces as service dogs do. Retail workers, and transportation staff who encounter dogs in red vests can ask the handler only if they need the dog for a disability, and what tasks the dog has been trained to do. The ADA prohibits them from asking what disability a person has or requiring any medical information, identification cards, or training documentation for the dog.
"There's no federal registration, there's no database — none of this makes any legal difference," says Rebecca Wisch, associate editor of the Animal Legal and Historical Center at Michigan State University. But the sparse wording of the ADA that regulates service dogs, and a flurry of social media posts about how to bring your dog anywhere, has created mass confusion around the rules. The registration sites may be "capitalizing on some of that confusion," Wisch says.
When any pet can be passed off as a service dog, it cheapens the work real service dogs are trained to do.
America has fully gone to the dogs. By one estimate, the market for pet clothing is projected to be worth nearly $10 billion by 2034, up from $6 billion in 2025. Dogs are their own influencer category, people pay hundreds a month for fresh dog food subscription services, and some clone dogs to reproduce identical ones in the future. With all this investment, people want and feel entitled to bring their dogs everywhere. Airlines and Amtrak require people to keep pets in carriers and charge additional fees. Some apartments ban all dogs or dogs of certain breeds or weights. Defining an animal as a service dog is the quickest way around those restrictions. Emotional support animals, which aren't trained for specific tasks but make their owner feel better when they're around, don't qualify as service dogs when it comes to public spaces.
Not one person asked me if Charlie was a service dog. I never needed to flash his "ID card." A Trader Joe's employee stopped me — to show me a photo of his own cavapoo. We rode the subway, and walked right into Business Insider's offices, where the security officer in the lobby offered to open a special door for me so that Charlie wouldn't have to cram into the revolving one. Having him at my feet certainly didn't help me or my coworker's productivity, but did make me more popular.
All of this was easy, and I can see how having a service dog badge at the ready would make it even easier to navigate public spaces with a dog. But experts tell me that fake service dogs have upended life for people with real disabilities and real service dogs. In a 2022 survey of 1,500 people who use assistance dogs around the globe conducted by Canine Companions, a nonprofit that trains service dogs, 93% of respondents said they have encountered poorly trained, out-of-control dogs in public. Nearly 80% said such a dog had interfered with their service dog. As more poorly behaved, fake service dogs act up in public, those with real, trained and necessary dogs may face more scrutiny when trying to come into shops and restaurants. "The ADA is very loosely structured language," says Cathy Zemaitis, the chief development and programs officer from NEADS, a nonprofit that trains service dogs. "There are tons of loopholes. And so when there's loopholes, people always take advantage."
Reddit abounds with complaints about fake service dogs. One person wrote of a coworker's dog that "runs all over the office, barks at every visitor that enters our building, begs and sniffs at our food when we're eating lunch." Another wrote about flying from Chicago to Miami and seeing "no less than 12 dogs" on their full flight, two of whom started a fight. "I would be pissed to be missing my international connection because two doofuses were allowed to bring their untrained dogs onto a flight." On TikTok, service dog owners post PSAs about registration sites and the fact that there are no official service dog registries.
I sent multiple emails and made calls to three different websites that claim to register service dogs, and none responded to questions I had about justifications for the registration services they offered. They have names like USA Service Dogs, United Service Dog, and National Service Animal Registry, which at first glance lead someone to believe they connect to an official database. The fine print of USA Service Dogs notes it's not: "USA Service Dogs is an organization providing service dog and emotional support animal registration services and products independent of any government organization," the bottom of its website says. "Registration not required by the ADA." NSAR also notes that "registration isn't a legal requirement, but it has been made very clear that nearly all embarrassing confrontations and hassles are eliminated when you register your animal and make sure it looks like a legitimate service or emotional support animal." United Service Dog's website says it can help you "save hundreds of dollars each year in 'pet fees,'" as service dogs can't be charged additional rent, deposits, or travel prices.
Landlords, airlines, hotels, and stores can't demand proof for a service dog. The Department of Transportation has a form for airlines that requires people to attest that their dog has been trained for a disability, is needed by the person with a disability, and is up-to-date on vaccines. Many airlines and hotels require emotional support animals to travel as pets and subject their owners to pet fees. In theory, an ID card could make it easier for people with real service dogs to avoid a hassle, but the misuse of registration and service dog vests by pet owners may be creating more problems than they would solve.
Most states have cracked down on service dog fraud. Minnesota, Arizona, and New York are among those that make it illegal to misrepresent a pet as a service dog, levying small fines on those who are caught. "I couldn't go into a store or an airport or even an office without seeing some disorderly four-legged creature dragging its owner around, wearing a vest that said 'service animal,'" Republican Arizona state Sen. John Kavanagh, who sponsored the Arizona bill, told NBC News in 2018. "I would see people in the supermarkets with animals in the shopping cart or walking around sniffing all the food."
The laws are mostly deterrents to bad dog-owner behavior, says Wisch. And particularly in New York City, they don't seem to be deterring many. The rules typically carry minor penalties, and not everyone working in hospitality or retail even knows what they can or cannot ask about service dogs. Workers who kick a dog out of a restaurant or store risks ejecting a real service dog, and discriminating against a person with disabilities.
There's no easy fix to the fake service dog problem. Some service dogs NEADS trained have been retired after having a bad interaction with fake service dogs in public spaces. Businesses are questioning how they're supposed to react to poorly trained dogs but still accommodate real service dogs. Creating an official training and licensing system for service dogs might undermine people who train their own dogs. Maintaining a database of all service dogs is likely a task too unwieldy for a government body to easily tackle. An official registration, Wisch says, "feels like that would nearly be an impossible task" to establish.
Charlie's first day of work was also his last. His best skill was finding the camera during a photoshoot for this story, but he lacks the right demeanor to spend his days in the office — he creates mass distraction by being too friendly. Like many dogs, Charlie is best off and happiest as a pet with no job.
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