Explaining Why I Have Two Working Dogs

I was just thinking about how to explain why I have two working dogs to people. Usually if you see a guide dog or service dog they are alone with their handler, not working alongside another guide or servie dog.

Things were simple when I just had Sophie. When we went out it was just me and her and if I wanted to go somewhere nothing held us back. If I traveled I packed her bowls, some food, her bone and a favorite toy or two and off we went. If we were going out for awhile I made sure I had her foldable bowl, water and some bags to clean up after her. I didn't have to plan ahead when doing things at all. She has as much right as anyone else to go into any public place and if anyone had an issue with it I knew I could call the Police and have them deal with it either by giving out a fine, or even jail time to the person or company that refused us acess.

Since getting Keisha things have changed a bit. Now I have to plan things out more. She is still a puppy in training and I won't be able to teach her guide work until her bone plkates have fused. She will be doing some pulling and I don't want her to injure herself because she isn't fully grown.
I know some people would have a problem with seeing someone work with two service dogs at the same time. It just don't seem "right" to some people because they aren't use to seeing it. If we decide to go on vacation we have to talk to the airline to make sure we can take both dogs intot he cabin of the airplane with us, talk to the hotel to make sure we can have both of them stay in our room without being charged (they can't charge extra for working animals), and deal with access into the places we go when we go out.

The biggest issue out of these is the flying one. I know the best thing to do is call ahead and explain to someone that I have two service dogs and I need to fly with both of them because I am blind and a quadriplegic. Sophie is my guide dog and she guides me, while Keisha is trained to do service dog tasks to help me. I work with both of them right now because Sophie was trained as my guide dog long before I became a quadriplegic and wasn't trained to do service dog tasks and I am training Keisha to take over Sophie's work so she can retire. But, I can't train Keisha to do guide work yet because she isn't fully grown and there is a lot of pulling involved and she can't pull safely until she is fully grown. She will eventually learn to guide me along with doing the service dog work and Sophie will retire.

Is that too confusing? Should I write a letter and send it to someone high up at whatever airline we choose. If I do that and get a response I could print it off and bring a copy with me when we travel.

I've heard so many stories of bad experience traveling with guide and service dogs on airplanes before. I've never had any major problems with Sophie but she has her guide dog id card from the school and things. You don't legally need this, but the airlines and other buisnesses still say you do even though it's not written in any law. They get so full of themselves sometimes.

Do you think the way I explained it is too confusing? Do you know a different way that would work? Maybe I should type out something and print some copies off becuase it would get pretty annoying having to explain the same thing before booking the flight, to the hotel before booking it, at the airport when we arrive, going through security, to the customs people, at the gate, to the flight attendants, to customs again, to the rental car people, at the hotel etc.

It's easy to say "she's my guide dog" ten different times, but having to explain things further can take up a lot of time! Even now people don't think Sophie is my guide dog because I'm a wheelchair user. They assume she is my "service dog" because you can't be blind and use a wheelchair! I had to go and hog up all the disabilities to confuse people lol! I have to admit I get some twisted enjoyment when the people around me don't realize I can't see though! I've been living here over a year and the people here still don't realize I can't see, or that I'm a quad. Apparently I don't look or act blind and people assume if you can move your arms at all then you can't be a quad. It is going to be fun at the starting line when I get my racing wheelchair wearing dark sunglasses (yeah, I'll go for the blind look), and "blind racer" written across the back of my chair though! That'll freak the other racers out a bit lol. I wonder if it wil be like when I use to play basketball and everyone would just get out of my way lol?!