Going to the bathroom with a service dog

I have a service dog named Sancho. He helps keep me alive.

People often see him and say, “I wish I had a service dog!”

I want to ask, “Do you wish you were disabled too?”

I would gladly leave my dog at home in exchange for a life free of fainting and suffocating. People tend to forget I have a service dog because of my disability, and while I can bring my service dog most places, I can’t go most places because of my disability.

Furthermore, there is nothing glamourous about being leashed to a service dog all day. I receive constant unwanted attention. Sancho wears a large “DO NOT PET” patch to ward off inappropriate touching. Nevertheless, every single person within a 50-foot radius wants to start a conversation about my dog. At best, they smile and say, “Cute.”

I refrain from saying, “I know he is, but what am I?”

Sancho is basically my shadow. Again, this sounds great until you’re sitting on the toilet willfully ignoring the stare of a poodle. (To be fair, I do stare at him while he potties. Maybe I should be grateful he doesn’t command me to “go poo-poo.”)

When I started bringing Sancho to work, we had to learn how to cram ourselves into the bathroom stall without stepping on each other. (No accessible bathrooms on my floor.) Once inside, I had to teach him that peering underneath the stall was rude, no matter what you see, hear, or smell.

I believe public bathrooms should be a refuge of anonymity. I believe coworkers who start conversations while I’m in the stall should be fired. When I go to the bathroom, I want privacy.

In other words, I don’t want anyone to hear me fart and know it was me.

To my horror, I quickly realized Sancho’s furry butt revealed my identity in the stall. At first, I froze whenever someone entered the bathroom, refusing to make any noise whatsoever. Sensing the awkwardness, that person would then hesitate to make any noise whatsoever, creating a bathroom standoff. I waited them out every damn time. Soon I began to worry people would call me “the woman with the dog who hangs out on the toilet.”

To alleviate my anxiety, I came up with a more practical solution. I taught Sancho to tuck beside the toilet, completely hidden view. Now, after several months of practice, we enter the stall with the grace of Olympic ice dancers, and I rejoice in my dog’s ability to conceal himself.

Last week, I dropped Sancho’s leash on the floor, which is totally disgusting. (Another peril of having a service dog.) Within a split-second, Sancho picked it up, and I exclaimed, “Good job!”

Toilet paper rustled in the stall two doors down. I tried not to laugh.

Apparently, there’s a woman in our building who says good job to herself in the bathroom. Good thing no one thinks it’s me.