People’s attitudes to dogs in service: A pilot study of a new 15-point scale

Interference with and discrimination against service dogs is a significant difficulty for people with disabilities. This research was designed to test a new measure of attitudes to service dogs: The People’s Attitudes to Dogs in Service Scale (PADS) to determine whether or not problematic behaviour might be related to tendencies toward dogmatism. An online survey was completed by 34 male and 50 female participants. Participants answered questions about dogmatism and their attitudes to service dogs. Results were statistically significant indicating people with less favourable attitudes towards service dogs were more dogmatic in their attitudes. This suggests that strategies other than public awareness campaigns might need to be considered to change public opinion and behaviour toward service dogs.