I've fostered a dog that was fully trained as a service dog, but it was disqualified from being put into service because the vet found a hip dysplasia. The dog never pulled on its leash while I was walking it, and it immediately obeyed a bunch of commands (come, sit, heel, side, quiet, leave it, etc.) without the need for me to repeat. When I eventually got a dog of my own, I worked hard to train it because it was just so awesome to have a dog that was well behaved.
The last time I saw a "service dog" on a plane, it looked like it weighed about as much as its owner. As soon as the plane door opened after landing, the dog lunged toward the door, banging back and forth in the aisle. The owner could barely hold it back, and they weren't giving any commands to the dog. The flight attendant made a snarky comment, "What a wonderfully trained service animal!" I'm sure they know exactly how a genuine service animal behaves, and they are probably completely fed up with the widespread abuse of the service animal exemption.
This jumped out at me like an easily solvable problem because of what you describe; we could have dogs complete an obedience test to earn the service dog designation.
I didn't even think pets could be "upgraded" to service dogs, I figured they all came from licensed training camps.
Not that I would do this, but, my dog would easily pass any of your service dog tests and he's only one year old.
While there's lots of abuse by people bringing obviously untrained and unqualified animals on a flight, there is just as much abuse by people who take well trained dogs on flights and simply don't want to subject them to cargo transport -- the abuse is just much less noticed for obvious reasons.
Personally, I would prefer to simply adjust the system so that any sufficiently capable dog can travel in the cabin for a fee, which would of course be waived for people with disabilities.
It's a pretty low bar for any dog that doesn't have major behavioral issues; I'd expect any dog with a non-dumbass owner and a good home from birth to be able to pass. Even many hard-core rescues could probably pass after a few years in a stable home.
A variant of this test for airline travel would probably not be too hard to design.
One of the problems with making any particular test mandatory is that the test operator can price gouge and then genuine service dogs will become even more expensive. So, such a rule would have to be paired with price controls on the test.
As far as I know, there is no way to legally verify that an animal is a service animal. I remember when I worked as a bus driver we were extremely limited (legally) in the questions we could ask, basically just "Is it a service animal?". It would be very easy to lie although I never had problems with untrained dogs.
The amount of "emotional support animals" at the local university is pretty ridiculous as well. I'm pretty sure students just lie so they can have a dog while they live in dorms.
> This jumped out at me like an easily solvable problem because of what you describe; we could have dogs complete an obedience test to earn the service dog designation.
Many cities in Germany require a test before letting you to keep the dog in the city at all. Very well behaved dogs on the streets, even without leashes
The last time I saw a "service dog" on a plane, it looked like it weighed about as much as its owner. As soon as the plane door opened after landing, the dog lunged toward the door, banging back and forth in the aisle. The owner could barely hold it back, and they weren't giving any commands to the dog. The flight attendant made a snarky comment, "What a wonderfully trained service animal!" I'm sure they know exactly how a genuine service animal behaves, and they are probably completely fed up with the widespread abuse of the service animal exemption.