You get on a bus and sitting next to one of the passengers is an adorable black fluffy puppy. The dog is wearing a service dog vest, so you know it is a working animal. You innocently say, "Your dog is adorable, what breed is that?" the handler is snappy and rude at you and says "It's a service dog" to which you reply, "no I know, but what breed?". The handler gets extremely frustrated and says "It's a service dog the breed is irrelevant" and hands you a small business card that is covered in tiny text about service dog ettiquette.

What would you do?


My partner has a service animal and for them personally, they find any comment or question about the dog really offensive and rude. It feels to them like people are commenting on their disability. We have business cards that have very small print and try to pack a lot of info about why questions or even innocent compliments are really hard for us when we're in public. However, part of my partner's disability is panic-related and so handling people and speaking to them calmly without being snappy or rude is extremely difficult for them - nearly impossible.

We're trying to figure out ways in which we can address this that won't cause more panic due to people trying to give us push back. The above situation happens to us all the time and usually results in the person getting extremely offended that we were so rude and not understanding that for us, innocent questions are really hurtful.

We're considering getting business cards that have bigger letters and say something extremely to the point like "What you just did hurt me. Please read the back of this card." or "Please ignore the dog and do not comment or ask questions."

Maybe our first phrase should be instead of "it's a service dog" to say "I don't want to talk about the dog." or "Please do not talk about the dog to me" or something.

What could we say or do without expending a lot of effort (this happens to us millions of times each day) that would create a reaction that is not defensive in you the potential other person in this scenario? What would make you say "oh okay, no problem" and mind your own business instead of getting annoyed right back at us?

Please help! We need a wide variety of opinions!