I’m Lucinda Brummitt, a service dog handler of twelve years, and this site exists because of a dog named Mr. Big.
I’m not a lawyer, a trainer, or an organization. I’m someone who has spent those twelve years working a dog in public — restaurants, grocery stores, workplaces, border crossings — and who got tired of reading advice written by people who have clearly never done it.
Mr. Big
I got him in August 2014. He was a rescue, and he came to me with a temperament that had no business being as good as it was given how he’d been treated before. Twelve years later he is still the best friend I have ever had.
He is part program-trained and part trained by me — which, if you’ve read anything else on this site, you’ll know puts us in a category the law handles inconsistently and most articles ignore entirely. It’s also the most common way real handlers actually end up with a working dog.
What he was trained to do
The tasks are the legal credential. Not a vest, not a card, not a registry. So here are his, plainly:
- Grounding through pressure. When I’m heading into a panic or anxiety episode, he applies pressure against my leg to reorient my attention. If I’m standing, he uses a paw instead.
- Blocking. He puts himself between me and other people when the situation calls for it.
- Perimeter watch. In public he tracks the space around me, and he’ll sit facing whoever is behind me.
- Deep pressure during nightmares. He lies across my body, and if that doesn’t do it he licks my face until I wake up.
None of that is comfort. Every one of those is a trained response to a specific thing, which is exactly what separates a service dog from a pet you love very much.
Before him, I was largely housebound. He gave me back a world I’d stopped being able to reach, in ways I still can’t fully put into words.
He’s retired now
Mr. Big has osteosarcoma. He lost his left hind leg to it on 24 July 2021, and that ended his working life.
Our vet was not hopeful he would come back from that surgery. He came back from it with flying colors.
So he’s an old man now, dealing with old man things, and my job has reversed — I take care of him, and I hope I do it half as well as he took care of me. He’s earned every bit of it.
I’m currently looking for my next service dog in training candidate. When I find him, I’ll be documenting that process here, honestly, including the parts that don’t go well.
Why this site exists
When I saw this domain come up for sale, I pictured something like a vlog — Mr. Big and me, our adventures, and what that freedom actually felt like after years without it.
I was completely non-technical at the time. My reach badly exceeded my grasp. We gave some talks, we were featured in a couple of articles, and then nothing much happened with it.
Meanwhile I went through some genuinely hard years, and he saw me through all of them.
Now, with a lot of study and real help from people who know more than I do, I can finally build the thing I wanted to build in 2014.
But the priority has shifted. The adventures still matter to me. What matters more is getting correct information in front of people, because this space has filled up with so much spammy noise that it’s become genuinely hard to tell what’s true from what’s opinion or wishful thinking. People make real decisions based on what they read here and on sites like it — whether to ask a landlord, whether to push back at a door, whether they even qualify for a service dog at all.
Getting that wrong has consequences for people who already have enough to deal with.
How I research, and what I’ll always tell you
This is my standard, and you should hold me to it:
- Legal claims get checked against the government, not against other blogs. ADA.gov, HUD.gov, the CDC, USDA APHIS. If a claim can’t be traced to a primary source, it doesn’t go on the page.
- I quote the actual wording and link to where it came from, so you can verify it yourself rather than taking my word for it.
- I date the pages. Disability law moves — HUD changed its position on assistance animals in May 2026 — and a page with no date is a page you can’t trust.
- I mark the difference between law and experience. When I’m telling you what the ADA says, that’s sourced. When I’m telling you what actually happens at a hostess stand, that’s mine, and I’ll say so.
- I correct things. If I get something wrong and you tell me, I’ll fix it and note that I did.
What I’m not
- Not a lawyer. Nothing here is legal advice. For your specific situation, talk to a disability rights attorney or your state’s fair housing or civil rights agency.
- Not a trainer or a training program. I can tell you what my dog does and how our life works. I can’t assess yours.
- Not a certifying body, and not a registry. No such thing exists under federal law. Anyone selling you one is selling paper.
- Not a nonprofit, and I don’t pretend to be. This is an independent site run by one person.
Affiliate disclosure
Some links on this site are affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission if you buy through them — at no extra cost to you.
I only link to things I actually use or have bought myself, and I’ll say so at the point of the link, not just here. If something has a real drawback, I’ll tell you what it is. A commission has never been worth more to me than being right.
Get in touch
If you’ve spotted an error, have a question, or want to tell me about your own dog, I’d like to hear it. Use the contact page.
And if you’re at the start of this — housebound, unsure, wondering whether a dog could really change anything — it can. Mine did.