my coworker won’t stop interfering with my service dog

A reader writes:

I work in a cubicle office and bring a trained, medically necessary service dog named “Betty” to the office with me. I allow her to socialize with coworkers on breaks, and she is very loved in the office for how friendly and adorable she is. She also adores her coworkers and thinks everyone is her best friend.

Unfortunately, a new coworker, “Sarah,” has been repeatedly ignoring service dog boundaries with Betty over the last six months.

These boundary violations include taking Betty out of my cube while I’m on work calls or distracted, removing her leash in public work areas without asking, entering my cube without permission to interact with her, and petting her or interacting with her when I step away from my desk. This has started to impact Betty’s training as she’s now having separation anxiety behaviors when I leave in order to get attention. Sarah would respond to this behavior, which escalated it, despite being asked repeatedly not to.

Things were at their worst today when Sarah not only removed Betty’s leash but also attempted to remove her service dog gear. I asked her to stop but this didn’t work, and I had to physically push her hands away from Betty.

I have had multiple conversations with Sarah about her behavior with little success. When I point out a specific behavior, Sarah will then start doing a new one or find different ways to circumvent the boundary and continue her interactions with Betty. This appears to be a pattern with Sarah, as there are other areas where she struggles to incorporate feedback.

All my conversations with Sarah so far have been verbal and in the moment, as we are equals and I don’t feel it is my place to supervise her behavior. I did message my supervisor about the concerns when they started escalating and we had a one-on-one about it. My supervisor then spoke with Sarah’s supervisor about the issues and a one-on-one was had with Sarah about a month ago. Despite this, the behavior has not gotten better and seems to be getting worse.

I have had a previous negative experience with HR where I was blamed for not handling a verbally aggressive and threatening coworker with clearer boundaries before escalating to them. This time I want to make sure that I’m doing everything I can and should before I escalate things to HR again. I also don’t want to ruin the atmosphere of the office by cutting off all contact to Betty due to one coworker being unable to follow boundaries. What should I do in this instance to handle it professionally and not step on toes or upset HR?

–  Trying to keep my working dog working

Your need for Betty to safely and effectively do her job The Presidents Sarah’s interest in interacting with a dog. Because of that, Sarah probably needs to be told she can’t interact with Betty, period, since she hasn’t been able to follow clear instructions about her. Being able to play with someone else’s dog is not a right; it’s a privilege that the dog and the dog’s person can grant or revoke. Sarah has forfeited it by repeatedly ignoring your clear instructions (and, apparently, her manager’s instructions too).

The next step should be to talk to your manager again and let her know that the previous discussion with Sarah didn’t solve the problem and, in fact, things have been escalating. She might be assuming that everything has been fine since Sarah’s manager got involved, so you’ve got to let her know that’s not the case. Tell her everything you said here, including that Sarah removed Betty’s leash and tried to remove her service dog gear (!) and that you’ve had to physically push her hands away from Betty, as well as that you’ve had multiple conversations with Sarah about it but nothing has worked. Then use these words: “I need the company to stop Sarah from interfering with my medically necessary service dog. At this point she is creating a safety concern for me, and I need the company to step in.”

If your manager doesn’t conclude on her own that at this point Sarah needs to be banned from interacting with Betty at all, you should say it yourself: “At this point I can’t trust her to safely interact with Betty and I would like her to stop interacting with Betty entirely.”

You should also explicitly tell your manager that you are concerned about going to HR because they previously told you that you should have handled an aggressive coworker on your own before bringing the situation to them. (For what it’s worth, that doesn’t sound like something that should be an issue here because you have tried to handle it on your own, multiple times. But you should let your boss know you’re worried about that.)

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