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Emotional Support Animal Spectrum

Don Maurer

    It’s well recognized that pets can exert a soothing effect on people reducing their anxiety level. As a result a whole industry of support animals has emerged to address these problems. These include the following categories: emotional support animals, therapy animals, companion animals and service animals.
    Next time you travel on a plane, train or bus and a passenger enters with a animal, this piece may help you determine who has the right of way. For a number of reasons dogs have been featured in this activity.
    Therapy dogs are used to bring comfort and joy to those who are ill or under poor conditions. Therapy dogs do not require specific training.
    Emotional support dogs provide comfort and companionship for an individual suffering from various mental and emotional conditions. Emotional support dogs are not required to be trained or perform any specific task.
    Companion dogs do not work, providing only companionship as a pet rather than usefulness by doing specific tasks. Any dog can serve as a companion dog which does not require any specific training.
    The Department of Justice (DOJ) published regulations implementing the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) for title 11 (state and local government services) and title 111 (public accommodations and commercial facilities) on September 15/2010 in the federal register.
    This publication provides guidance on the term “service animal.” Service animals (SA) are defined as dogs that are individually trained to do work or perform tasks for people with disabilities. Examples include guide dogs for the blind, guide dogs for the deaf, pulling a wheel chair, protecting a person having a seizure, calming a person with mental illness or PTSD. Service dogs are working animals, not pets. This an important distinction. The work or task a dog has been trained to provide must be directly related to the person’s disability. Dogs whose sole function is to provide comfort or emotional support do not qualify as service animals under the ADA. Service dogs must be registered and allowed access to all public accommodations.
    You just can’t take your dog Fido on a plane, claiming it gives you emotional support, and expect airline officials to accept it. Service dogs appear to have all the advantage. However, the service dog must be under the control of its handler. Under the ADA service dogs must be harnessed, leashed or tethered, unless the individual’s disability prevents using these devices with the service dog’s safe, effective performance of tasks, in that case, the individual must maintain control of the dog through voice, signal, or other effective controls. Only a dog trained this way could perform accordingly.
    Why is distinguishing among the various dog categories so important? Because people have tried to pass off a variety of animals presumably providing solace and comfort. Examples galore exist. One woman tried to board with a peacock. In another incident a lady was escorted off the plane. She’d noted in her reservation that she’d be traveling with an emotional support animal. We can see right away an emotional support animal doesn’t meet the requirements of a service dog. Moreover she failed to specify her support animal was a squirrel. Can you imagine the stir on the plane with a fuzzy tailed rat; okay rodent scurrying around under seats, jumping onto the laps of innocent bystanders. The airline did not consider a squirrel as a comfort companion. The woman sued the air line for discriminating against rodents. That’s a new one. Never heard that one before. If you’re planning a trip leave your pet beaver or capybara at home. Yes! They’re both rodents. Large ones to be sure.
    Delta passengers have attempted to fly with comfort turkeys, gliding possums (sugar sliders), snakes (And wasn’t there a movie entitled Snakes on a Plane) and spiders. American Airline accommodates service dogs, but no longer allows goats, ferrets, hedge hogs, amphibians, and reptiles flying the emotional support flag. What a relief. Still some airports have ambassador pets or therapy animals accessible for passengers to play with before boarding. One airport actually offered baby alligators to play that role. Not making this up. Look Mom and Dad if this is okay with you it’s your hospital bill. Gators and crocs have some of the strongest crushing jaws in the animal kingdom. At what size does a baby gator achieve this level?
    An old acquaintance had a pet (or so he claimed) 6’ foot bull snake. When he traveled with the snake wrapped around his body and neck it was a great attention getter. Still didn’t really help his love life attracting chicks. But wait.
    An article in the Guardian newspaper Fort Walton Beach Fla featured a story about a law officer who stopped a car for irregular driving behavior. The officer thought it was a potential DUI event. The officer asked the driver for identification and then a few questions. The conversation was subsequently interrupted when the officer noticed a large yellow snake writhing in the passenger’s seat. The snake was a yellow green python which the driver claimed as an ESA. Don’t we all have one of these when we hit the road?
    The article continued. “According to the ESA.com website there is a compelling case (not for me) for why snakes might surprisingly (Indeed!) be the perfect pet for this role.”
    “Snakes are relatively easy to care for and need to be fed infrequently. They are naturally hypoallergenic since they don’t have hair or fur, and they are extremely quiet, making them ideal for bringing to public places. Additionally their tendency to wrap and coil themselves around people can feel extremely comforting – almost like a hug.” Yeah sure. Be the first on your block to have a traveling python.
    The article concluded that since pythons were rampant in Florida and invasive to the area, and how common and widespread they are in Florida, pythons might not be unusual choices for an ESA after all.
    The article failed to mention that pythons are playing havoc with wildlife and are a major cause of predation on naturally occurring populations. Depending on the size of the pythons, prey ranges from mice and squirrels, opossums, to ground birds, and to much larger mammals including foxes, dogs, and deer. This explosion of pythons is mainly due to people, who acquired the snakes as juveniles, and decided that as they grew larger they were too much to care for, and were then released into the wilds of Florida. According to the above article we really should have more pythons to handle the demands for ESA.
    All right folks. Make other arrangements for your pets unless you have a registered service dog when you fly. No pigs, rabbits, deodorized skunks, lizards, turtles, armadillos — whatever. Other passengers may not be sympathetic about your need for an ESA. They didn’t sign up for he Noah’s Ark Tour. Best bet. Registered service dog. You can even register on-line.

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