Entitled mom throws tantrum when told she can’t pet service dogs

At this point, it should be a pretty well-accepted paradigm that, generally, human beings kind of suck. I mean, I’m a pretty progressive, modern guy, and I’m not saying I don’t believe in the basic decency and value in all humans. I’m just saying that a lot of times humans have the ability to throw all that good will away and remind you how much better off the universe would be if we weren’t there mucking it up.

For example — a woman who just can’t quite understand that, no, her precious little children cannot pet service dogs if the people the dogs care for tell you that they can’t, and throws a tantrum over it. That would probably make you feel like hope for humanity is a myth, wouldn’t it? I mean, I know that the Internet is chock-full of people who make you realize how self-centered and illogical we can be when we don’t get what we want, but you could use one more example, right? Right.

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Recently, at a mall in Pittsburgh, an argument broke out and was recorded and blasted on social media. The argument broke out when a woman got very offended that a dog handler who was working with service dogs wouldn’t let her children pet service dogs being trained at the mall. Either the mother doesn’t understand or doesn’t care what service dogs are meant for, because she went from 0 to Crazy Mad pretty quickly.

The video was originally shared to Facebook by service dog handler Megan Stoff and has been viewed over 2 million times, with people shocked by the aggression of the mother. It is (or at least should be) a well-known fact that service dogs are there to assist people with special circumstances or requirements, and shouldn’t be interfered with while working. Sure, a polite request can be made, but no means no, and this mom didn’t seem to understand that. (Bored Panda)

There is a lot of galling behavior this mother puts on display, but when you consider that Megan is Autistic and shouldn’t have to explain to everyone she sees that she’s too busy to stop and let them pet her dog, it’s particularly unnerving. Maybe it’s the angst of the holiday shopping season, or maybe the woman accosting Stoff just doesn’t think people truly need service pets. Whatever the reason, as Megan explained herself, it can probably be very exhausting for people who need service pets to be constantly bombarded by strangers wanting to treat their animals like other pets.

“I’d rather people ask than just lean in and try to grab her, which happens every day… but I don’t always have the energy to explain what she’s doing or why she can’t be petted. I’m autistic and sometimes just can’t speak very efficiently at all so I can’t explain even if I wanted to.” (Bored Panda)

It’s not that what this mother asked was so terrible. That’s not why this video went viral. It’s that there seemed to be no recognition on the mother’s part that her child wasn’t entitled to pet the dog. What’s worse, she got so irate with Megan that she even got litigious.

Threatening to sue an Autistic woman because your kids can’t pet her service dog is dumb. But what’s even dumber is snidely chastising an Autistic woman for not putting signs on her dog when there are more than one sign on the dog telling you not to pet it.

As they pointed out in the video below, the person who was training the dogs doesn’t owe this woman an explanation. She’s not owed a damn thing. You shouldn’t have to explain to strangers why they can’t pet your dog – they’re your dogs.

(No, it’s not. You’re in a public area.)

The bottom line? The outrage people feel toward this spoiled mother is probably best explained by an observation Megan made herself.

“Unfortunately I feel like people don’t consider me at all when they ask to interact with my service dog the majority of the time. ” (Bored Panda)

Thousands of people are putting in their two cents, so we figured we’d let you weigh-in now as well. Watch the video below and tell us what you think.

Had this crazy experience yesterday at the mall where some lady asked if she could pet the dogs. People ask us all the time so I just said, “no.” All the dogs are working so it’s my go to answer. And they walked away. No big deal right? This lady went out of her way to come back with her child and yell at us for saying “no” and for not saying, “nO iM sOrRy ThEy’Re TrAiNiNg.” And we should “have a sign or something.” You mean the 20 patches on my dog that say don’t pet? 🙃 Entitlement these days is real. They even got mall security because we said they couldn’t pet the working dogs. 🙃😂 Security said that the lady was crying 😂 So much harassment for just saying no. This video is public and is shareable. There was no common sense here.

Writer/comedian James Schlarmann is the founder of The Political Garbage Chute and his work has been featured on The Huffington Post. You can follow James on Facebook and Instagram, but not Twitter because he has a potty mouth.