Legal Issues Archives

A service dog provides help for a disabled person.

All About Dogs

Doing A Disservice: The Harm In Service Dog Fraud

You may have noticed the signs outside of businesses becoming more prominent lately. They all carry a similar message: Only legitimate service dogs allowed. And, in some jurisdictions, they are now adding a reminder that service dog fraud is a crime. What Exactly is “Service Dog Fraud?” First, what it isn’t. You may see statements that service dog fraud is a federal crime, but it isn’t — at least not when it comes to a person with a fake service dog. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) does cover the definition of service animals, which is currently limited strictly to

August 20, 2020 No Comments

A woman cleans up the poop her dog left behind.

All About Dogs

Solving The Problem Of Poop

The average dog produces about 12 ounces of waste every day. That doesn’t seem like much — about what a can of soup weighs. But multiply that by the estimated half a billion dogs in the world, and in a year you wind up with around 74 million tons of poop. In case you’re wondering how much that is, it would cover New York’s Central Park to a depth of nearly 25 miles, or fill Boeing’s airplane production facility in Everett, Washington nearly 10,000 times. The U.S. alone accounts for about one-seventh of that total. That’s definitely a metric poop

July 4, 2019 No Comments

Dog Care

Pet Limits: The More The Merrier?

The county of Los Angeles has just announced that they will be allowing just over a 33% increase in the number of dogs that may be kept in private homes within their jurisdiction, from three to four. The rationale behind the move is to provide more places for homeless dogs in the county to be placed. Statistics are hard to find, but according to Much Love Animal Rescue, the LA Animal Services reports there are between 26,000 and 44,000 homeless dogs in the city at any one time. Estimates put the number of owned dogs in the city at about

July 18, 2017 No Comments

All About Dogs

Making Your Workplace Dog Friendly

If your workplace hasn’t yet gone dog-friendly, and whether they’ve made the choice to do it yet or not, there are important things to keep in mind and steps to take before the first paw crosses the threshold. Think of them as the before, during, and after phases of the dog-friendly policy implementation process. Our dogs are important to us and we’re important to our workplaces, so it’s best to avoid any problems before they happen. After all, well-prepared is well-protected. Steps to Getting Your Work Environment Ready Preparation For the sake of space, we’ll brush aside the enormous differences

June 6, 2017 No Comments

dog sitting in a box because owners are getting a divorce

Dog Care

Who Gets The Dog After A Break Up?

By Nicole Pajer Breakups inevitably come with the splitting up of material possessions—taking what you initially came into the relationship with and divvying up items like couches and coffee tables. But what happens when you own a dog together? Figuring out what to do with a dog that you owned with an ex can be a tough and emotional battle. While it’s easy to say that you’d like to take Fido yourself, it’s best to keep the dog’s interest in mind when deciding its post-breakup fate. Just like in dealing with kids in a divorce or breakup, there are three

June 18, 2015 No Comments

Get Involved

The Puppy Selling Ban Debate

“How much is that doggy in the window?” used to be a common phrase across America. For most people, getting a puppy meant going to the locally owned pet store to pick one out. No one ever thought about where the puppies came from and the condition of that place, or about dogs sitting in shelters. Today, a war is raging on whether or not pet stores should be legally allowed to sell puppies. According to the Best Friends Society, twenty states have passed some type of legislation that either bans puppy selling altogether or creates standards for selling puppies,

June 18, 2015 No Comments

Dog Care

How To Include Your Dog In Your Will

Our dogs are more than just pets — they’re family members. When you bring a four-legged companion into your home, you become responsible for their well-being, making sure they’re exercised, fed, and able to do their business, while remaining healthy and happy. In return, they teach you new things, provide unconditional love and devotion, and often help you to branch out in ways you never expected. Many people feel that they become a parent to their dogs just as much as they would to any human child. But what happens if your dog is still around after you pass on?

June 18, 2015 No Comments

All About Dogs

The Most Dangerous Dog

Whenever a dog kills someone it makes the news, but it really isn’t as likely as you might think. You’re 226 times more likely in your lifetime to be killed while walking down the street than to be killed by a dog, and 650 times more likely to die in a vehicle accident, but we haven’t tried to outlaw walking or cars to protect people — yet. What is Breed Specific Legislation? But we have created Breed Specific Legislation (BSL), which are laws that ban the ownership of certain kinds of dogs — generally pit bulls, Rottweilers, German shepherds, and

June 18, 2015 No Comments