What is required of you

Control, at all times

The dog must be harnessed, leashed or tethered, unless the handler's disability prevents it or the equipment would interfere with the task, in which case the dog must be under control by voice, signal or other effective means. Under control is not a formality. A dog that wanders, greets, or does not respond to its handler is not under control, and a business may lawfully ask it to leave.

Care, which is yours alone

• Feeding, toileting, exercise and veterinary care are the handler's responsibility in every setting, including hospitals, universities and workplaces.
• No business, landlord or institution is obliged to supervise, walk or care for the dog.
• Arrangements for your own incapacity are worth making in advance. If you are admitted to hospital, someone else needs to be able to collect the dog.

Damage and nuisance

You are responsible for damage the dog causes. A landlord cannot charge a pet deposit but can charge for actual damage, exactly as for any other damage to the property. The same applies in hotels and student accommodation.

The rules that still apply

• Local licensing, registration and vaccination requirements apply to a service dog like any other dog.
• Leash laws apply outside the narrow exception for task performance.
• Breed-specific local ordinances cannot be used to exclude a service dog from housing or public accommodation, but a general obligation such as licensing is unaffected.
• Bite and dangerous dog laws apply in full.

How access is actually lost

Almost never by paperwork. It is lost when a dog barks in a restaurant, when it lunges at another dog in a shop, when it relieves itself in a lobby, or when the handler cannot recall it. Each of those is a lawful ground for removal, and each of them makes the next handler's life harder, because staff generalise.

Being challenged well

You will be challenged, including by people who are wrong about the law and confident about it. How that goes is largely within your control, and the handlers who have the fewest problems are not the ones who know the most statute.

• Answer the two questions directly and briefly, before anything else. Most challenges end there.
• Name the task, not the diagnosis. She alerts me and guides me out of a building is a complete answer and gives away nothing.
• Do not produce documentation. Offering a certificate teaches that staff member to ask the next handler for one, and the next handler may have nothing.
• If they persist, ask for a manager rather than escalating with the person in front of you. The person on the floor usually has no authority to change the answer.
• If you are refused, ask for the reason and the person's name, and leave. Arguing at the door has never once produced a different outcome, and a complaint afterwards sometimes does.
• Keep the dog's behaviour impeccable while this is happening, because it is being watched and it is the actual argument.