- If the owner wants his dog to receive SD status - what should he do and can the dog be deprived of the status?

A pet cannot get SD status, even if the owner really wants it. SD is taught from birth and is trained for a specific type of disability. For example, guide dogs have completely different requirements than wheelchair dogs, and the temperament of a dog for these two types of disability should be completely different. If a person is disabled and a dog can help for his disability, then he can contact one of the organizations that trains dogs for his disability and ask for SD. You can also buy a puppy and hire an instructor to train him for the needs of this disabled person, but here the probability of success is rather small. This is because basically SDs are specially bred and organizations have their own system by which they are trained, and have their own qualified instructors.

In particular, if the SD is attacked by some other dog, such as someone impersonating their pet as a service dog, which is against the law, and that pet or a poorly trained ESA attacks or frightens the SD, then the SD will be disqualified. This is not only a big financial loss, since SDs are very expensive, but also a great inconvenience for a disabled person who cannot do without his SD and he urgently needs to replace this dog. Therefore, if someone passes off his pet as a service dog, this is punishable by law up to prison, not to mention heavy fines.

– What mistakes and misconceptions do you observe in people regarding SD or ESA?

I see that a lot of people don't know what it is and think that they can go to the doctor, ask for a certificate and after that they can go to public places with their pet and say that it is SD. In fact, healthy people cannot have a service dog. Another misconception is that people think they can take ESAs to public places, but they don't. You can’t go to shops, restaurants, or other public places with ESA, stay in hotels where pets are not allowed, too.

I think that you should read about ada service dog registration and this information will be useful to you