The fabulously inventive American culture that has come up with new words like crowdsourcing, metrosexual and chilax, has yet to devise a word to describe a fairly modern problem.
What does this sign mean? Does it state that it's illegal for someone to pretend that they are a dog trained to assist a human in some way? Probably not. What is meant is that it's illegal to walk around in a business pretending that the dog on the leash is needed to assist the bearer in some way.
There doesn't seem to be a word that can clearly convey this idea so "impersonate" is used. Of course service animals, be they dogs or hamsters, aren't persons so they can't be impersonated. Would "inanimalate" do? Not for me.
For the immediate future let's go with "K-fake". The sign could read "K-faking is illegal". That makes more sense than using the term "impersonate" in this context.
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