A B.C. woman who is hearing impaired and suffers from vertigo says she wasn't allowed on a Metro Vancouver bus on Wednesday because her service dog didn’t have a vest.

Lisa Arlin was surprised when a driver in New Westminster, B.C., wouldn't let her board a bus.

Arlin says the driver refused to let her on because her dog, Charlie, wasn't sporting a vest that identified him as a service dog.

"I was crying, I was upset, I was very humiliated and I didn’t know what to do," she told CTV Vancouver.

"The bus driver was really rude, he told me to get off his bus," she added.

Arlin obtained Charlie from a family in the United States. The dog is not registered under the B.C. Guide Animals Act. Instead, Arlin has a medical certificate from her doctor identifying the dog as a service animal.

But she says when she offered to show the bus driver, he told her to get off and that she was holding up the bus.

The B.C. woman is completely deaf in one ear and wears a hearing aid in the other. She says her service dog helps her when her vertigo causes her to black out.

CTV Vancouver followed Arlin as she tried to board seven buses in Surrey on Thursday night. Four drivers adhered to TransLink policy and let her on after she identified Charlie as a service dog and presented her medical certificate.

But three others refused to let her on the bus.

Two drivers told her that Charlie needed to be in a cage.

"You cannot bring the dog onto a bus like this," he said to Arlin, as she stood on a Surrey sidewalk.

"Not without a cage," he added.

Arlin has complained to the Metro Vancouver transit authority, and she is also filing a claim with a human rights tribunal.

"People with disabilities who have service dogs are entitled to ride the bus without discrimination and without being humiliated," said Arlin.

TransLink's vice-president of communications, Colleen Brennan, called the drivers' actions "unacceptable" and said that dogs don't need to be wearing vests to be allowed onboard.

"This is really serious and it is actually very disturbing when we hear things like this," she said.

She added that TransLink plans to issue a bulletin to its drivers about its policy on service dogs.

With a report from CTV Vancouver's Lisa Rossington