I was always under the impression that service dogs were better trained.

I was just in a hardware shop when a couple of young guys came around the corner being led by a rather large dog. I’m not the best with breeds, but I’m thinking it’s similar to a larger pitbull or an Am Staff. Beautiful dog either way. I’m not use to these breeds being used as service dogs, but it was wearing the vest.

The main thing I was kind of curious about was it behaviour. I’m use the service dogs completely ignoring me. This dog came right up to me and started sniffing and watching me, pretty much ignoring his charges instead of me. I’ve been taught to never interfere with working dogs so I just paid no attention which is hard when you have a 75 lb dog staring at you. The thing that made me very nervous though was how skittish is was. When I went to walk by the dog in the narrow aisle it flinched away like I spooked it. Again, a large strange dog getting spooked is never a good sign.

Is this normal behaviour? All the other service dogs I’ve been around never approached people, and weren’t easily spooked. Maybe he was an emotional support dog or a dog trained for epilepsy? Are these types of support dogs less strictly trained?