As the founder and longtime leader of one of the nation’s largest service dog organizations, I consider myself an expert on proper and effective training. I believe a dog can be of reliable and trustworthy service to a person with visible and invisible disabilities.

The problem is, there are a lot of what we call impostor dogs out there that travelers are bringing onto flights for emotional support or other therapy. The animals may help the travelers feel better, but the dogs are impostors because they haven’t had proper training, and, in many cases, they’ve wreaked havoc on flights with attacks and other inappropriate behavior.

Impostor dogs can also create potentially fatal disruption when a trained service dog is attempting to perform a life-saving task, not to mention an impostor dog misbehaves on a flight and disturbs passengers and crew. It’s gotten to the point where the flight attendants’ association characterized air travel as the “Noah’s Ark of the sky.”

While Guardian Angels Medical Service Dogs fully supports the U.S. Department of Transportation’s efforts to regulate service animals on airlines across the country, its proposal falls far short of doing an effective job of recognizing impostor dogs. The key flaw in DOT’s plan is having personnel screen the dogs who have absolutely no appropriate background or training. In fact, the people at the airlines being asked to make decision as to whether a service dog is appropriate to fly are not canine behavior experts. Their opinions could easily be jaded if they personally don’t like certain breeds of dog, had bad experiences with dogs or read a dog’s body language incorrectly, thinking the dog was friendly when it isn’t.

While well-meaning, the DOT’s service dog regulations are little more than a Band-Aid that falls far short of solving the real issue. That’s why we’re proposing a solution based on regulation at a federal level with the creation of a service dog certification.

The concept is simple and would be so much more effective. This certification program would require a service dog to be re-evaluated annually or within a certain time frame of flying.

Even a well-trained service dog can be untrained or suffer a traumatic event that changes its behavior, rendering it inappropriate to be in public. Currently, there is no law requiring a medical service dog to have an ID card, veterinarian certification, or any certification whatsoever.

Guardian Angels Medical Service Dogs is ready to take the first steps to put our plan into action to roll out a pilot program in our headquarters state of Florida, tweak it and then roll it out across the country.

Now it’s up to the DOT and the airlines to use their power and influence in the right circles to make federal service dog certification happen. It will not only make air travel more pleasant, but also safer for those who require service animals and those who are sharing aircraft space with them, and it will keep impostor dogs grounded.

Carol Borden is founder and chief executive of Guardian Angels Medical Service Dogs.