To clarify: I'm not talking about if pets in general can give emotional support to their owners, of course they can.
I mean should the concept of Emotional Support Animals get treated with the same level of respect and seriousness as that of regular Service Animals for the physically disabled.
Emotional support animals are not the same as trained service animals. And esa is just your doctor saying "having this animak around helps with bob's mental health symptoms." Service animals are trained to perform specific tasks like checking blood sugar, detecting seizures, assisting blind people, or aiding in mobility.
There's a lot of backlash against esas bc people take animals that are completely untrained in to public settings and the animals, being completely untrained, cause all kinds of problems. Actual service animals are very carefully trained not to cause problems
There’s a lot of backlash against esas bc people take animals that are completely untrained in to public settings and the animals, being completely untrained, cause all kinds of problems. Actual service animals are very carefully trained not to cause problems
This sounds like a problem with a relatively obvious solution, which is to find a way to train specialized ESA pets.
Some countries do, of course that makes it very difficult to get one (the vast vast majority of support animals wash out of training for reasons that seem trivial but would be a real problem in context)
Either way any system that allows people to avoid paying their landlord extra to have a pet or force their landlord to let them have one is a good thing. Landlords should get absolutely no say in whether you have pets, especially since you already have to pay for damages to the place.
Just because you can't see a disability doesn't mean it isn't there. People suffering from mental health hardship have enough people telling them they're faking it, they don't need scepticism from people who are supposed to be allies on top of that.
Often times however the loose rules regarding ESAs are exploited by people that definitely do not need them. I used to work in a grocery store where one lady had her service dog attacked multiple times by untrained dogs that their owners were clearly lying about being support animals.
Also people trying to pull that argument to take birds into the bulk foods department or the food bar.
It's not quite so cut and dry.
I'm fully aware, I don't have the best mental health myself.
I was just wondering what the consensus here was on this specific facet, since there is some controversy over it.
Most skepticism comes from rich people being able to use their wealth to certify or make a "convincing" fake of an emotional support animal (usually poorly trained) that they don't actually need. But someone with a phobic or anxiety disorder would absolutely benefit from having a way to redirect their reactions to stress-inducing stimuli in a way that doesn't make the situation worse.
I think the ideal is to have a support person, but in our alienated society, an animal trained to watch for and respond to stress reactions is a close second.
I've seen them actually used within a medical and social services setting due to my job so yes they're very much needed and exceedingly beneficial for people with a variety of conditions that may not be externally noticeable. However, the reason for the current hate on them is assholes using loose legal terminology of support animals to bring pets on to flights or claim their dog is one even though it was never trained as one. Again though this abuse is projected on to the greater realm of support animals due to the reactionary nature of media and the US culture in general.
Some laws, depending on location, prevent apartments from charging a monthly "pet fee" if your pet is for emotional support. I'm all for anything that keeps money from going to landlords.
The way apartment managers talk about charging that fee is disgusting, "pets are like family and we know tenants are willing to pay a lot for that privilege"
:blahaj: tfw when you don't have an emotional support shark :trans-sad:
The emotional support shark in Summercamp Island is my favourite character.
There needs to be some level of training demonstrated for it imo, either professionally or through a system similar to like a driving test lol.
It's good though, it helps a lot of people. Problem is there's not really like an accepted behavioral standard that's included with the concept, so a lot of it is just shit head people with asshole dogs making a scene.
Hell maybe just a standardized behavioral test to see if you're allowed to have your dog in public in general
Love dogs. But totally see why people get pissed at shitty people with shitty animals
a badly behaved dog or cat is still preferable to most americans
so there's really no grounds to deny them
In general this is just an extension of badly behaved Americans
It is absolutely reasonable not to have to share some spaces with people's pets, whether your concern s allergies, hygiene or behavior
a badly behaved dog or cat is still preferable to most americans
At this rate I'd take a badly behaved python over most- oh wait that's not what you meant.
They are 100% a real thing. Just anecdotally, I knew a kid who had autism and social anxiety, which made doing anything at school incredibly difficult for them. The turnaround when they were allowed to bring an emotional support animal (a small dog in this case) was like a miracle. For this alone they deserve to be respected and taken seriously.
But I see a lot of people talking about how people will abuse the system for emotional support animals. In Australia the schools with the highest rates of mental health issues all happen to be the wealthiest private schools. While this could be because they have better access to healthcare, it is more often because if they say they have a mental health diagnosis, then they can get special consideration for their exams, hence many of these kids don't actually have a mental health problem they are just seeking ways to abuse the system. The same goes for saying whether you speak a different language to English as a first language, or when people will claim they are Aboriginal due to distant relatives when if you talk to them they will identify as some other ethnicity. Just because people abuse the system doesn't mean that the original issues don't exist and shouldn't be taken seriously. Especially in the case of Aboriginal people (since there's always some discussion about it in the media, mostly due to receiving government payments if you identify as Aboriginal) where due to the attempted genocide it is basically impossible for anyone to keep track of their family tree anyway.
Actually, since everyone here is from the US, a more obvious recent example is the student loan debt forgiveness and how most wealthy people have abused to system to receive more debt forgiveness than the people who need it the most. We just can't judge things based on whether the benefits are being abused because there's always wealthy people abusing the system.
Your points are pretty good, but wealthy people don't get student loan payments because they never took out student loans to begin with, their parents paid for the whole thing.
While true, I wouldn't be surprised if they find many loopholes to pay as little as possible and have as much as possible paid by government/scholarships/whatever that can only be accessed due to privilege and abusing the system. Its never enough for them to just have some privilege, they need all of it
Definitely true, but student loans are a debt trap for poor people, you'd have to be really stupid to set bait in a trap and then try to eat it. They'll gobble up grants and scholarships, but not loans.
It started out as a good idea, but then it was way too easy to get the classification so people just started taking their pets on flights. I met a guy who had the certification and he just laughed and was like, "I'm not mentally ill, I just like traveling with my dog. Plus I don't have to pay for a kennel or find someone to take care of him when I'm gone."
HOT TAKE: I don't care if you pet is an accredited service animal. I want to be able to pet a dog at the post office.
A world where our animal friends have places in public life is a better world
Yeah my take is even if they aren't real and Emotional Support Dogs are a globalist conspiracy to let dogs on the bus - GOOD. MFs what are we doing not letting dogs be anywhere ffs this sucks.
Not speaking to whether there are people who benefit from a service animal (no doubt there are many), but just pointing out there's basically no regulation or oversight. It's just, you can go online and pay some scammy company $60 for an orange vest and a paper that says your dog is a service animal.
Airlines on the other hand require a note from a doctor validating your need for a service animal. Hence why you rarely see service animals on planes.
You don't have to pay the scam company anything. You literally just need a doctor's note and as far as i'm aware no one can legally ask to see the note.
Anyone can legally ask practically anything they want. There's just nothing compelling you to show them anything in 99% of circumstances.
Pretty sure you can just say, "no, sorry, you can't bring an ESA in here" though. Because they're not service animals.
Once while taking hotel reservations over the phone a lady called up and told me she was bringing her emotional support horse to the hotel. We were specifically trained not to tell anyone under any circumstance that they couldn't bring these animals to hotels. Instead we were supposed to put them on with the hotel director immediately.
I told her I needed to transfer her call and immediately she wanted to throw down. So very honestly I told her "Mam, I don't know if the hotel director is going to allow you to bring a horse into their hotel" and she BLEW THE FUCK UP. "YOU CAN'T SAY THAT, YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO TELL ME THAT! THAT'S AGAINST THE LAW."
I'm pretty sure she got the horse so she could use a loophole to abuse service people over the phone.
Guess I should of followed the rooools, but I'm 100% certain the hotel manager didn't let a horse into a room.
I wish that ESAs would fly with landlords here :( Could do with scamming a landlord into letting me have a cat.
Are you in the US? Because I’m pretty sure it’s required by law in all 50 states. You just make sure you sign a lease before you tell them about the animal, then go “Oh I have this letter for you!”
Can't paint the walls or hang up pictures without the landlord's permission (or the landlord charging you $800 for repainting or fixing the walls you "damaged")
State? Vic & qld recently added pet protections, LL can only say no on grounds of "reasonability", defaults to yes after 14 days. Dunno bout the rest tho soz
Dogs and cats are not allowed in flats or apartments without a separate yard. You can keep other pets such as a caged bird or a fish.
:what-the-hell:
Also $260 pet bond BTFO
