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Unlike the Emotional Support Animals, service animals have to undergo a large amount of training and certification in order to be considered as such. This ensur
by kendallpark 12y ago
Unlike the Emotional Support Animals, service animals have to undergo a large amount of training and certification in order to be considered as such. This ensures that they are well behaved in situations where animals would not normally be allowed (like airplanes).
This is very unfortunate for those with disabilities that really do need service animals. I'd put the ESA-abusers in the same class of people that use their relative's handicapped parking permit to get a better parking spot.
EDIT: Furthermore, there are only two species of animals that can be recognized as a service animal: dogs and miniature horses. There doesn't seem to be a species restriction on ESAs.
- servicepups 12y agoThere are a limited number of handicapped spots. Not so with ESA dogs. Though, I'm very very careful to make sure mine isn't a pain in the ass, and not everyone goes to such lengths.
- kendallpark 12y agoI understand that the analogy is not entirely symmetrical. That being said, it wouldn't work if everyone exploited this loophole. And I think that the author--as brash as she was--shows how far this can be exploited. What's to keep someone with an poorly behaving ESA dog from boarding an airplane? Nothing.
- stolio 12y agoFalse. Society has a certain amount of patience for people taking their dogs everywhere, it's not unlimited. Not everybody likes dogs, some people have had traumatic experiences, some people are allergic, there are health codes to worry about, etc. The more people take their ESA's around, which inevitably causes problems, the lower that level of patience becomes. I'm all for ESA advocates getting together and coming up with a system to regulate them and ensure it's low impact, but printing off certificates from the internet isn't going to cut it.