Poorly Trained Service Dogs Sold to Families Desparate to Help Their Kids

There are several organizations selling very costly "service dogs" to families with young kids with serious medical problems, like juvenile diabetes, and severe disabilities, like autism.  I put the term "service dogs" in quotes because some of these organizations, the ones I'm talking about here, are selling poorly-trained dogs or even untrained puppies and calling them service dogs when they really aren't.

One organization is infamous among service dog handlers for selling puppies as young as eight weeks old for $20,000, claiming the puppies are trained to detect life-threatening changes in blood sugar levels in young children, even from a distance of more than a mile away.  It is simply not possible for a dog to smell anything that far away and an eight-week-old puppy is too young to be trained to do anything; they are barely old enough to be housebroken.

Now another organization is in the news, with parents complaining that the service dogs they paid $10,000 for don't even obey basic commands like "sit" and "stay," that they chew up household items, and have even bitten people.  Naturally, these parents want their money back.  Naturally, the organization does not want to refund their money.

I'm pretty sure this is the organization that trained a service dog for a family that posted numerous pictures on Facebook and videos on Youtube a while back, showing the dog sitting on a chair in a restaurant, sitting in a seat on a plane, and barking loudly at animals in exhibits at a zoo.  The mom said that the dog refused to lie under the table at restaurants.  She was angry because someone on the plane told her the dog was not supposed to be in the seat.  She did not think it was a problem that the dog was barking at animals at the zoo.

I'm not surprised that some people want their money back.  I am surprised that people keeping shelling out so much  money without finding out how the dogs are trained and stuff first, but I guess some parents are so desperate to help their kids, they are willing to forgo common sense.  I mean, seriously, a believing that a puppy can detect changes in your kid's blood sugar from more than a mile away?  Does that sound believable?  But they shelled out $20,000.