A Day in the Life of a Service Dog Handler: California Law
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Story submitted by Liz.
When Someone Invents a Rule On the Spot
We’d just spent four hours in the car, me and my friend J. We needed to check in, shower, and get into costume before the evening con panels started. I told the guy at the desk Penny was my service dog when I got to the counter, before he could say anything, but he still had a problem.
“I need to see her license,” he said.
Cool, cool, cool.
I told him service dogs don’t need to be certified or registered. That’s a myth and he should read the ADA. He gave me that customer-service smile. All fake. He said he knew about the ADA, and he knew certifications weren’t real. He said California was different, and without a license, they’d have to charge a pet fee.
Photo by Joel Mott on Unsplash
I’ve gotten “is she certified?” more times than I can count, but this was a new one. For a second, this guy almost had me even though I live in California. I started second-guessing whether some law had changed while I wasn’t paying attention. J too. From behind me, I heard his jaw drop.
We had exactly one hour to get upstairs, get changed, and make it to the con floor for the panel we’d bought VIP passes for, and this guy wanted to talk about a California service dog license.
Penny clocked that I was tensing up and leaned her whole body into my leg. Good move, because I was two seconds from an anxiety attack, even though this guy was probably just repeating whatever his manager told him in a staff meeting.
“We really don’t have time for this,” J said, not quiet about it at all.
I tried to keep it calm: California can have whatever laws it wants, but federal law sets the floor for service dogs, and there’s no legal basis for a pet fee on a service animal.
Front desk guy picked up the phone and asked us to wait for a manager.
For thirty minutes, we stood in the lobby and worried about our con panel. J kept checking his phone, doubting whether we could still get ready on time.
The manager finally showed up, apologized, and said there was no license requirement and no fee. She had no idea where the front desk guy got that idea.
Cool, cool, cool. Thirty minutes we’ll never get back, but at least someone knew the law.
We made it to the panel with minutes to spare.
We looked it up later, once we were back in the hotel room and in PJs. California does have an optional license program in some counties, but “optional” is the keyword here—nobody has to have it clipped to their dog to walk into a hotel or a store.
Curious about service dog state laws? Head to our Resources page to learn more about certain state laws and how the affect service dogs.