Down the Leash Service Dogs

10/13/2026

10/13/2026

Happy birthday US Navy

Happy Birthday to the U.S. Navy!

Today we celebrate the Sailors who protect ports and seas across the globe with honor.

Fair winds and following seas. ⚓🇺🇸

10/09/2026

10/09/2026

Now is the time to make a donation for us through the Give SI Campaign. We are trying to reach our goal of $5000 this year. This money will go towards the training and equipment for one of our veterans and their service dog in training. Please help us reach our goal this year. This campaign ends tonight

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10/09/2026

Give SI is going on now if you’d like to donate to Down the Leash Service Dogs here is our link.

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10/08/2026

Very good advice

There’s a consequence to misrepresenting a pet or emotional support animal as a service dog that I don’t think gets talked about enough: you make it harder for people to trust legitimate service dogs.

Some people do it knowingly because they want to take their dog somewhere pets aren’t allowed. Others genuinely don’t realize that emotional support animals don’t have the same public-access rights as service dogs. Those are two very different situations, but they can contribute to the same problem.

If a business has enough experiences with people calling pets or ESAs “service dogs,” then eventually employees start wondering who is legitimate. Bad behavior makes that even worse: barking at customers, pulling toward other dogs, having accidents, or interfering with a working dog. After a while, skepticism starts replacing trust.

Then someone walks in with a legitimate service dog, and they’re the one who gets questioned, watched, or treated like they might be lying. They didn’t create that distrust, but they’re the ones who have to deal with it.

And that’s before we even get into the danger of an untrained dog distracting, approaching, or reacting to a working service dog. That dog isn’t just another dog in the store. Someone may depend on it to perform tasks related to their disability.

Emotional support animals can be incredibly important, but they are not service dogs and they don’t have the same public-access rights. A well-behaved ESA is still an ESA, just like a well-behaved pet is still a pet.

If someone genuinely doesn’t know the difference, educate them. But if you know your dog isn’t a service dog and represent it as one anyway, remember that you aren’t the only person affected by that decision.

You might get your dog through the door. Someone who actually needs a service dog may have to deal with the suspicion you leave behind. 🐶❤️

10/04/2026

I want to wish a very special birthday to the service dog that started it all for me. This is Ariel and he is 9 years old today. Without him Down the Leash Service Dogs would not exist. Training him inspired me to become a professional dog trainer. This dog is a true hero and an inspiration to all who have met him.