Junior Gets His Service Dog Certification

[latopla]

http://www.cesarsway.com/news/foundationnews/Junior-Becomes-Service-Dog?utm_source=mobilestorm&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Sep10NL_1B

Junior recently received his Service Dog certification from The United States Service Dog Registry (USSDR), an independent registry service that offers self-identification for Service or Assistance Dogs.

This is Junior as in...Cesar Milan's successor to Daddy...his ambassador dog basically.  As in...NOT A SERVICE DOG!!

Oh my God the problems that his is going to cause as it gets more and more publicized...the misrepresentation...this makes me want to puke!  It physically sickens me!  OH MY GOD!!!   

[PatBen]

  EEEEEEEEEWWWWWW, that makes me want to puke as well 

[cowlypso]

I actually just created an account so I could post a comment.  The message that I got after I saved the comment, though, makes it look like they don't actually put comments up on their website, but instead review them internally and respond.  Anyway, maybe I'll get a response.  Guess I should have copied and pasted my comment here before it disappeared into the internet...

[latopla]

I attempted to post a comment as well and then I sent an email to their customer service. 

This is the comment I tried to post:

According to the ADA, a service dog is defined as "any guide dog, signal dog, or other animal individually trained to provide assistance to an individual with a disability." Another quote from the ADA, "Service animals are animals that are individually trained to perform tasks for people with disabilities such as guiding people who are blind, alerting people who are deaf, pulling wheelchairs, alerting and protecting a person who is having a seizure, or performing other special tasks." What is really key about these definitions is that they state that service dogs are dogs that are specifically trained to perform tasks that mitigate the disability of an individual. In order for a dog to be a service dog, it must accompany a handler who is disabled.

Service dogs are not required to be registered or certified and do not have to provide any proof of certification. In fact, there is no service dog certification in the United States that has any type of legal value.

It is a federal crime to misrepresent a dog as a service dog when it isn't.

Perhaps when this was done, Cesar wanted to get Junior certified as a therapy dog? That would probably be more appropriate. There are definitely certifications for this, some of the best known are through TDI (Therapy Dogs International) or the Delta Society. Therapy dogs provide therapeutic benefit to people in hospitals, nursing homes, rehabilitation centers, or schools. They volunteer at this places with permission from the owner and are otherwise well trained pet dogs.

I think it would be very important for Cesar and the Foundation to correct this misunderstanding because it has the potential to cause a lot of confusion and lead people who are not disabled to getting their dogs certified by a fake organization. Yes, the United States Service Dog Registry is fake because the certification it offers still holds no legal value. Having a dog certified through this registry does not make it a service dog by any means.

For the email I sent I added something along the lines of saying that this article is a huge misrepresentation that could cause legal problems for Cesar and his organizations if not corrected...since I copy and pasted my comment into the email and it already mentions that claiming a dog to be a service dog is a federal crime.

Oh I am going to be royally PO'ed if something isn't done about this.  I mean I'm going to be red hot, spitting mad!!

[state_of_nowhere]

I sent a comment through the Cesar website and choose "report fraud" since he is promoting illegal activity.

[MJ]

I needed an outlet for my sarcasm so here is my comment.

Wow that's wonderful. I did not even know Cesar were disabled. He seems so healthy on the TV show. But he must have a disability that substantially limits a major life activity such as seeing, hearing, speaking, walking, breathing, or performing manual tasks because a service dog must be individually trained to perform tasks to mitigate the handlers disability.

I would really like to see a full article about Cesar's disability and what tasks Junior is trained to do that mitigate it. I am worried that people who do not know the law might see this article and get confused.

[MJ]

I just searched the article and it did not contain the word disability once. How can you have an article on a service dog without mentioning disability?

[latopla]

I'm pretty convinced that Cesar got service dogs and therapy dogs mixed up.  He is from Mexico and I know that virtually every other country refers to all working dogs as service dogs.  Even if it was an honest mistake though, it absolutely does not give such a public figure (with such influence on pet owners!!) the excuse to do something like this and not do any research first.  If this article is widespread...the damage it could do is monumental.  So many people that will just believe anything watch his show and get really dumb ideas.  This is just like handing them another dumb idea.  I'm also hoping this doesn't end up in his magazine (I plan on scanning through the next couple future issues to check) because I know that is also pretty widespread and this newsletter is a sub-set of the magazine. 

I'm still reeling about this.  The ignorance of posting an article like this is beyond me...jeez!  I am going to be indescribably mad if nothing is done to correct this mistake.  I wonder if Cesar or his organizations choose to not correct it and continue to represent Junior as a service dog...could the DOJ be notified?  Can anything be done aside from attempting to contact his organization that might be more productive if they ignore the mistake?

[hopesclan]

There are FAR TOO MANY people involved in the promotion of Cesar for someone not to catch this flaw-filled act well before it went public.  Terrible.

[Rovingrebel]

well I just commented

[PupFashionista]

It just occurred to me that he is probably affiliate marketing USSDR. Otherwise, he gets paid or a kickback each time either someone either clicks on it or signs up for their services.

An example of this is the Heartguard link that is at the bottom of the page. It is definitely affiliate marketing and not just Google ads bc Google ads (as well as Chikita ads and such) all say something like "Powered by Google/Chikita/etc.

Affiliate marketing is extremely lucrative and if you've already got a site that's SEOed and w/ a high page rank....i

[state_of_nowhere]

Ok, so on the FB USSDR site, there is a link to the article with more information. They didn't know about the article being written, so it's not a promotion (so they say). They also claim that Cesar does have an invisible disability, but that the wording of the article was misleading.

http://www.facebook.com/servicedog#!/posted.php?id=267158136611&share_id=155947154417491&comments=1#s155947154417491

[PupFashionista]

The original site doesn't necessarily know if someone is an affiliate marketer or not. For example, I used to be registered with Click Bank which would allow me to put in affiliate marketing links on my blogs but CB acts as the go between so I wouldn't have to register with each individual company I wanted to promote.

A friend of mine used to have a affiliate marketing company market her book but got frustrated with it when her marketers started pulling sneaky things to get the commission. People started complaining and blamed her for it but she had no clue as to who her marketers were.

[Smithcat]

Well....the page got pulled.
Too much heat? Possibly.

[cowlypso]

Interestingly enough, if you go to the registry program's website, you can look up registered dogs by entering the handlers first and last name and the dog's name.  A search with the relevant information yields no hits.  Wonder if they dropped him?