<p>“Carla Black, a psychotherapist in Marina del Rey, Calif., began receiving enough requests for emotional support animal certification that this year she began advertising on her website. For $99, she provides an hour of her time, over the phone or Skype, and a clinical assessment, along with a prescription letter, which is valid for one year.”</p>
<p>How would you balance the needs of the few?</p>
<p>Oh geez. As an attorney who handles a lot of employment issues, I’ve learned a lot about service and comfort animals. Turns out the only service animals you have to allow in your retail establishment are dogs and miniature horses. No monkeys, cats etc. Someone came into a Ross Dress for Less store with a boa constrictor claiming it was their comfort animal. All the other customers went screaming from the store.<br>
I’ve dealt with several issues involving emotional support animals. It’s a whole different deal than service animals.</p>
<p>Any animal can provide ‘emotional support’ with no training. So can a stuffed animal or favorite blankie or lucky charm. An ‘emotional support’ animal isn’t the same thing as a ‘service animal’ - it’s just an object that make the person feel happier and more content as opposed to a service animal that can direct a blind person, retrieve objects for a physically disabled person, etc.</p>
<p>This (a 1 hour phone call ‘certification’) sounds like a scam that’s being abused by a lot of people. Sure, I’d like to have my dog fly in the cabin with me and I’d likely even ‘feel better’ if he was there but that doesn’t mean he’s required to be there or that he should be there.</p>
<p>My mum has a gf, actually a woman I’ve known since I was a young child, who recently has an ‘emotional support’ yorkie. She flies free on planes, goes into stores and restaurants, wearing a tiny service dog vest. I assume this helps to identify the tiny pup and may cut down on the number of times she has to explain. She no more needs this pup as emotional support then I need to fly to the moon. She could also afford to buy out the plane if she wanted so that’s not the draw. She likes her dog with her and for some people the rules don’t apply. Mum told me just giggling thinking it was cute. I was actually kind of irritated and found it odd mum was amused. </p>
<p>There actually are people who need these support animals. People like this (my mums friend) make those in genuine need more suspect to people who have encountered ‘questionable’ cases before.</p>
<p>“Emotional support animals,” unlike “service animals” (which can, as stated, only be dogs and miniature horses, per the ADA) aren’t protected under the ADA. AFAIK, they’re only protected under fair housing law but IANAL.</p>
<p>Also, from a clinical ethics POV, that seems ultra-sketchy because she’s essentially promising that she <em>will</em> find everyone eligible.</p>
<p>The potential renters I’ve had claiming “emotional support animals” were people I wouldn’t have rented to under any circumstances. They were extremely pushy regarding the fact I “must” allow their support animal. I have a D with disabilities. I just hate it when abuse something like this.</p>
<p>Aren’t most animals “emotional support” animals? Didn’t we used to call them “pets?”
I was in Kroger once in the winter when a woman came in with a rat in a plastic cage. The police officer on duty ordered her to leave, even though she protested that she needed the rat and that it would freeze in the cold. I was just creeped out …</p>
<p>I have asked the store manager of the grocery store where I shop to have people who had dogs in their shopping carts to please take them outside. I love animals and have had many throughout my life, but they do not need to be in the grocery store when I am buying food unless they are a service animal. The manager has always been nice and asked the people to take the dogs outside then thanked me for letting him know. Many stores here in California now have signs outside that say “service animals only.”</p>
<p>I lost all respect for a woman I know when I found out that she pretended that her golden was a service animal in order to have the dog fly in the cabin of the plane with her. To me that is beyond tacky. As for this business, I consider it a scam too. I agree footballmom, we use to call them pets. My little spaniel is my emotional support too, but he doesn’t get to go everywhere with me and nor should he.</p>
<p>As has been said, but is continuing to be ignored, service animals and emotional support animals are two entirely different things. Emotional support animals do not have public access and that is not their purpose. They do a great benefit to the mentally ill and developmentally disabled, many of which are completely isolated and live devastatingly lonely lives. They typically are not much different from a pet and do not have public access, so unless you are a landlord I see no reason to get all up in arms as the issue has ABSOLUTELy no affect on you whatsoever.</p>
<p>jym - I agree, the entire idea that this woman is taking advantage of this ‘loophole’, or whatever she’s found, to have life flow her way (as she usually does) irritates me to no end. She is someone with money for whom (she feels) the rules never apply, she simply finds a way to circumvent them to live as she pleases.</p>
<p>Em - respetfully, I’m not ignoring anything. The pup is an emotional support animal that she gets away with having with her at all times. So yes, public access. I’m making no argument it’s not supposed to be that way. I’m stating that’s my experience, my frustration.</p>
<p>While I was waiting at the airport gate area recently, a very scared German Shepard was being pulled, yes, pulled on a leash by a couple. I could only overhear part of the conversation, but a manager from the airline came over, looked at their papers, and said that this was an internet scam. </p>
<p>The dog was obviously not trained properly to be a service animal and the couple was trying to foist him off as such. The animal’s behavior told the true story. The dog kept whining, crying, howling…</p>
<p>Eventually, the manager relented and the dog got on the plane. I’m glad it wasn’t my flight. That dog was going to be disruptive with all the noise.</p>
<p>I was in Famous Footwear the other day when some woman came in with her precious “emotional support animal” – some kind of yappy little furry thing – holding it in her arms while she tried to juggle boxes of shoes to take to the bench to try on. It was ridiculous. The salesclerk told me that they can’t ask her to leave the dog outside since it had on that silly little vest that designated it as a support animal. She didn’t seem to be mentally ill or developmentally disabled, but even if she was, surely she can manage a 20 minute trip into the shoe store without the comfort of holding her dog.</p>
<p>I see this more and more in grocery stores, drug stores and malls. How did people manage before this silly regulation began? :rolleyes: And what happens when the dog has to pee (or worse)?</p>
<p>There is a nifty table in the link I posted in post # 11 that shows the differences between the 3 types of dogs. I’ll bet that most public places don’t know the difference between a service dog and an emotional support animal, so if someone says they are an emotional support animal (or even a therapy dog, which also is not permitted in public places, but are limited to the facilities in which they are used to help patients, the elderly, etc) most average folks might not know that these dogs are not permitted in public places where dogs are otherwise not permitted.</p>