How will your service animal respond to strangers with characteristics they haven’t seen before?
Some service animals are disturbed by people wearing hats, sunglasses, who have facial hair, make use of a cane or have a loud voice. Does your service animal remain neutral when encountering these things?
How will your service animal respond to intriguing smells?
If someone puts down a backpack or purse with something that smells delicious, will your service animal ignore it?
Will your service animal become restless during a lengthy lecture or while you write an exam?
This could be a serious distraction.
Has your service animal been exposed to crowded spaces? How did they respond?
There are many locations throughout our campus where crowds tend to form; your service animal should remain unfazed.
Is your service animal mature enough?
For example, service dogs younger than one (human) year old may experience changes in their behaviour as they mature which can make them unreliable as service animals.
Has your service animal been spayed or neutered?
For service dogs, remaining intact tends to create a high risk for causing distractions amongst other animals.
Is your service animal thoroughly trained?
Animals sometimes respond to other animals in ways that are quite different from how they respond to humans, and this is sometimes surprising for their owners. A service animal that is not thoroughly trained can undermine the training of another specialized service animal, prompting it to have to be retired and possibly placing the owner at risk. This can sometimes occur with only one point of contact.