Went with 3 other Service Dog teams to go train while there happened to be a little league playing on the ballfield. A woman who said she was with the little league and the park approached us not even 5 mins after we arrived and told us our dogs had to be on leash (3 were, 1 was on an e-collar for a disabled combat vet). The combat veteran's dog barked twice to alert him that someone was approaching our group since we were outside and our combat veteran has hearing loss. After we explained to her that the dog was not on a visible leash but was still under voice control and e-collar and that they were service dogs in training, she then told us because we had not rented the park for training, we had to move far away from the ballfield since more little league teams would be setting up. We explained that service dogs are in no way allowed to be aggressive since her concern was that a child would run by and our dogs would bite them. She said that because we weren't walking along the pathway, we still needed to move further away. We told her that was discrimination since there were other families (2 with pet dogs) sitting near the ballfield, but that we would move.
After we moved much further away, we started training with our dogs amd kept all dogs on visible leashes to avoid any issues, even though legally, we weren't required to. After an hour or two, we saw a family with a small dog dog off leash where we had originally been and their children playing and chasing it. We didn't make an issue of it mainly because the dog never came near our group. We continued to train in a 30ft radius and about 20 mins later another off leash dog started running towards our group. We all had our dogs sit so we could protect them if necessary, and we shoo'd the dog away. The dog was wandering all over the park from the most southern end of the soccer field all the way to the baseball field and all over the playground urinating on everything. It approached our group 4 times, and on one of the times, a lady was walking by, and she called to the dog saying "Fluffy" - I asked her if it was her dog and that it needed to be on a leash, and she pointed to another family playing on one of the soccer fields and kept walking. The dog started to run up to our group again, so I stomped my foot on the ground and yelled "no" loudly. It left running again around the park. I finally had enough and started recording the dog not with his family and as I did, the dog started towards our direction again, which was about 100ft or more away from its family.
The combat veteran in our group went to go complain to the little league lady who had spoken with us earlier and she was managing the snack bar. She asked if the dog was with the little league team, he said no, and she replied with "well then I don't care". He was being very clearly discriminated against and asked her for her name and she refused. I started recording the dog running loose and the lady who had called the dog went amd told the family I was recording and the family put a harness on the dog and tied it to the soccer post. I called for an officer to come out so we could speak to them about the discrimination we had experienced. We spoke with Officer Tony and explained what happened and that instead of filing a lawsuit, we wanted to educate the lady, the little league organization and even the city of Tolleson if needed. He said he would speak with the lady (who interrupted our conversation with the officer twice to tell him she already spoke with Randy from the Parks and Recs Dept) and he thanked our combat veteran for his service and we went pur separate ways. The lady could use some manners with the general public and not discriminating...
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