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So something I only recently found out myself is that there is actual no real requirements in order to register an animal as an "emotional support animal", I fo

• brightball 6y ago
  Yep. The thing that bothered me more than anything about this is that you aren't allowed to ask for any type of verification, so people can just walk in with them anywhere. Never made sense to me. At least to park in a handicap space you need a hang tag or a special license plate. Why not something simple like a special collar tag or card in your wallet?
  • at-fates-hands 6y ago
    A know in my state (Minnesota) a lot of places (apartments/condos) require the dog is a service dog, not just designated an "emotional support dog" in order to clamp down on people getting around housing requirements or taking their pets on planes.
  • henrikschroder 6y ago
    You are absolutely allowed to ask for verification that an animal is a real service animal, but the people who have been conflating emotional support animals with service animals want you to believe that you can't. Service animals have to be licensed, trained to perform a task or duty, and be easily identifiable. Misrepresenting an untrained and unlicensed animal as a service animal is fraud and illegal.
    • CADBOT 6y ago
      Actually, they don't need to be licensed. The only thing a business can ask is what tasks is the service dog trained to be formed. I do think it would be better off for everyone if there was a license though. I've known people with legitimate service dogs who have had that opinion even. They wish they had a document to prove their legitimacy, as they are constantly asked for a document that doesn't exist.
      • colejohnson66 6y ago
        That requirement always felt weird. I can’t ask what disability a person has, but I can ask what the dog is supposed to do? Because if they say it helps alert to a seizure, I just learned they possibly have chronic seizures without actually asking that.
        • tarboreus 6y ago
          It's fair because it doesn't set a precedent in other areas. But yes, in practice it's odd.
      • henrikschroder 6y ago
        Oh, thanks for correcting me, I thought there was a license involved in the US, or at least some kind of certification that the animal actually is trained, and that you didn't just slap a vest on your pet poodle...
    • kec 6y ago
      as CADBOT says, there is no license (or even standards body who could lobby for / issue one). You're allowed to ask what tasks the animal performs, then deny service so long as accommodations are made. The correct solution is for businesses to grow a backbone and do that for all animals all the time until people gaming the system with fake ESAs give up.
    • llbeansandrice 6y ago
      > Service animals have to be licensed In the US this is not true by the ADA as licensing is a pretty prohibitive cost for many people with disabilities.
  • gnopgnip 6y ago
    Emotional support animals don't get any special rights outside of housing, and in limited cases air and train travel. They can't be brought into areas pets are prohibited. You do need to provide verification from a physician or mental health provider to your landlord or the airline for an ESA. Service dogs(or rarely horses) can generally go anywhere the owner can go including areas pets are prohibited. There is no formal verification, but the owner of the property or their employee can ask if this is a service dog that is required because of a disability, and what tasks it is trained to perform. If it is a cat or other animal, or not trained to perform a task, just to provide support it is not a service dog and they can be refused entry and trespassed. Registration of service dogs would disenfranchise the disabled. About twice as many don't have photo ID as the general public, many do not own a car or have access to reliable transportation, even relatively small costs can be prohibitive
• superdisk 6y ago
  The emotional support loophole abuse has been going around on Facebook and Reddit as a trick to get your animal anywhere for a while now. Everyone knows the trick now and very few people care that they're abusing the system.
  • 13rac1 6y ago
    This doesn't seem too far of a reach: "Abusing the system" => Taking advantage of services for people with mental and physical disabilities => Taking advantage of people with disabilities.
    • DoreenMichele 6y ago
      It's a little more complicated than that. Homeless people also will claim their pet is an emotional support animal. They are often homeless because they are disabled but being homeless means "Good luck jumping through bureaucratic hoops to register anything." Sometimes someone's life comes unraveled because their disability has never been properly identified and accommodated. Being able to say "I need this" without having to jump through hoops to prove it can help such people make their lives work better. Most studies suggest that something like one in five people has a disability. One study that asked about user needs and challenges in using stuff intentionally avoided using stigmatizing words like "disabled" or "handicapped" and more like three fifths of respondents said they had some degree of trouble doing various things and more accessible design would benefit them. People who are only moderately disabled often try like hell to avoid getting labeled as disabled because it is stigmatizing and people start treating you like you are stupid and worthless rather than like you just need special accommodation in some areas to make your life work. Those who qualify for an official label of "disabled" are equally hostile to seeing only moderately disabled people being granted the label that grants special status and special accommodation. The reality is that disability occurs along a continuum. It isn't an on/off switch where if you fall on this side of the line you are "normal, healthy and able-bodied" and if you fall on that side of the line you are "disabled." We try to categorize it like it works that way but it doesn't really work that way.
      • 6y ago
• TigeriusKirk 6y ago
  Just go off on a tangent a bit, but isn't "emotional support animal" pretty much the definition of "pet"?
  • Spivak 6y ago
    Yes, but the difference is the animal is a prescribed as part of a course of treatment for someone's mental health.
    • Rebelgecko 6y ago
      Emotional support animals require a prescription?
      • thelean12 6y ago
        The word "prescribe" can be used outside of a medical professional authorizing the use of something. A medical professional can prescribe a treatment of aspirin, for example. That doesn't mean aspirin requires a prescription.
      • masklinn 6y ago
        ESA don't require anything which is why the idea is easy to abuse, but ESA and PSA (psychiatric control animals) are real things, and under 14 C.F.R. § 382.117(e) airlines can require evidence of an animal being a service animal or an ESA/PSA, such as up-to-date documentation from a mental health professional of the ESA's necessity to the owner. I expect not waving this is what the rules change actually is, because I don't think the DoT can just decide the ACAA is not a thing. For a service animal, the airline can only require > identification cards, other written documentation, presence of harnesses, tags, or the credible verbal assurances of a qualified individual with a disability using the animal. Although it should be noted that only 23 states prohibit misrepresentation of a service animal, the main difference being that service animals are rather obviously limited as they can only be dogs or miniature horses (an other thing which makes me doubt the complete veracity of the article).
• gnopgnip 6y ago
  There is no registry for emotional support animals, the websites claiming to offer this are scams. You need a letter from a physician or mental health professional that the animal is needed to treat a disability. Landlords can't charge a pet or animal fee for emotional support animals.
• masklinn 6y ago
  > So something I only recently found out myself is that there is actual no real requirements in order to register an animal as an "emotional support animal" Yes, this is done to avoid the risk of running afoul the ADA and ACAA. Sadly this has gotten more and more abused in recent years.
• llbeansandrice 6y ago
  A bit of conflation in some of the comments but the "issue" is a bit of a loophole in the ADA. The ADA basically tries to minimize the burden of having a disability. So there are no licensing fees or registration or anything related to having a service animal by the government and as such businesses, landlords, etc. can't ask for something like a license or registration of a service animal as verification. The key difference between an "emotional support animal" and a legitimate service animal is that service animals have training that directly assists with the person's disability. Easy examples are seeing-eye dogs, dogs that are trained to smell/detect low blood sugar in diabetics, and dogs that are trained to protect their owner if they have a seizure or similar. Emotional support animals are just...emotional support and aren't trained to really do anything. It seems like businesses were just too scared to go to battle over people bringing their pets places for fear of being accused of violating the ADA. To be clear, I think emotional support animals are ridiculous, but the "no registration/license" piece is a very critical part of the ADA. Finally, businesses are allowed to ask what tasks a service animal has been trained to do as verification and that allowance doesn't even extend to service animals in training.
  • nefitty 6y ago
    Emotional support animals aren’t “ridiculous”. They actually have some positive impact on people’s mental health, eg those with PTSD. I do take issue with abuse of the regulations. Some beneficial medications can be used recreationally, and governments give abundant clarity on legal and illegal uses. It would be harmful for people to start calling those medicines “ridiculous” because some people use them to get high or improve their performance. I think a solution is for the government to place restrictions on emotional support animal use, eg the same way prescriptions are handled. https://journalistsresource.org/studies/society/culture/emotional-support-animals-research/ https://journalistsresource.org/studies/society/culture/emot...
    • llbeansandrice 6y ago
      You're right. My most common interactions with ESAs is definitely people abusing the loophole to take their pets places which leaves a sour taste in my mouth, but there are certainly valid uses and positive impacts. I'm a bit touchy on it because I've seen it become a real issue for people with service animals.
• jrnichols 6y ago
  > I found that out after my sister registered her dog as an emotional support animal to get around her apartments "no pets allowed" rule. A family friend owned and managed an apartment complex and had issues with tenants buying certificates online for their pit bull and saying it was an "emotional support animal." The dog wasn't, they just wanted to get around local breed restrictions. Apparently that is quite common.
• yardie 6y ago
  There is none, to little, protections in the ADA for support animals. I believe the only provisions are service dogs and horses. But apartment managers, many restaurants, and general businesses are just ignorant enough of the law to not really push it. Some restaurants are starting to push back due to hygiene. Now the new thing is to get out of paying exorbitantly high ($500) pet fees by claiming the pet as a support animal. Competent building managers will see this coming and note that only service dogs are exempt.
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• joegahona 6y ago
  I have a huge beef with "pet rent," as it's charging people a non-refundable fee for an animal each month, simply for existing. If landlords would prefer their tenants not have pets, simply do not allow them.
  • slaymaker1907 6y ago
    That's really not fair since pets do cause quite a bit of damage on average and as someone who likes pets, I feel like such a policy of not having pet rent would make it even more difficult to find a place that even allows pets.
    • joegahona 6y ago
      Toddlers cause more damage than single adults. Should landlords be able to charge more for, say, a single mother with a mentally disabled child who is prone to throw things? In both cases -- pet or children -- damages should be extracted from a security deposit. j
  • jjeaff 6y ago
    Makes sense to me. It's like charging a fee for smoking. Pets are going to create a certain extra amount of wear and tear, some not easily quantifiable. No matter how clean and well behaved you think your pet is.
  • hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
    Have been on both sides of this as a renter and landlord, and it's basically an insurance payment. We have all sorts of things for which you need to pay for insurance in order for you to have that thing in your possession. When it comes to pets, basically all apartments will require more cleaning between tenants when a pet occupied the apartment, and for some non-negligible percentage of pets there will be large bills due to accelerated wear and damage.
  • 0xffff2 6y ago
    Is my landlord charging me rent "a non-refundable fee for a human each month, simply for existing"? Why shouldn't a landlord offer the option if that's what they're comfortable with? Why is strictly less choice better for a pet owner?
• jrochkind1 6y ago
  "Registered" where/with whom? I don't believe there is any kind of "official registration" like this at all, in the USA.
• hackeraccount 6y ago
  I looked for it on youtube but couldn't find an old Saturday Night Live sketch with the players talking about things they ruined for everyone. It was "this is why we can't have nice things" before it's time. The only one I remember was John Belushi saying that he would go out hitchhiking and then murder the people who picked him up. Which thinking about it doesn't really sound funny but in context was actually.
• whalesalad 6y ago
  Yep. My wife and I did this and flew first class with two dogs. There is an element of "you cant ask me why I need this animal" from the ADA. Then again, I had a therapist who vouched for this and actually do have mental health problems that my Shepherd without a doubt helps me with. No way in hell I am putting the dogs in the cargo hold. The passengers around us and flight attendents were absolutely enamored with how well they behaved. While I tend to agree that this has been abused - it frustrates me that obnoxious children get a pass.
  • casey77 6y ago
    Parents pay full fare for children to fly so I wouldn’t call them equivalent. Some dogs are great while others are awful. Just like children.