I have a young nephew who has asthma attacks when close to dogs. These are full-blown, severe asthma attacks, which aren’t easily stopped with a simple inhaler. In a contained environment, like an airplane, I’m not sure how he would do, especially if he had no choice but to sit near a person with a dog. Thankfully, he has never has never had to be put in that situation.
So it puts the question out there, are his rights as an potential airline passenger less significant than the rights on a person with an ESA or service animal? I honestly don’t know.
I used to think like Consolation, before I spent way too many nights in the hospital with an asthmatic child hooked up to oxygen and an IV. Yes, an inhaler isn’t always enough, and surviving may depend on getting to an ER quickly. We sometimes had to go to the ER on flight layovers for asthma treatment when regular nebulizer treatments weren’t enough to stop the wheezing. My child could get in a life threatening situation very quickly. Children die from asthma. Adults, too.
Allergy attacks can indeed be life threatening and folks with COPD can also have quick triggers and end up with life threatening breathing problems since they have so little lung function to begin with. Please don’t minimize the danger that ALL pets can pose to those who have very twitchy and sensitive airways. No one chooses to have sensitive airways or have reactions that land them in the hospital. Asthma attacks can and still do kill.
By all outward appearances, my college student D has it all together and is thriving; indeed, she is highly successful in all ways at her college. She is a leader on campus in several different capacities, she’s personable and well-liked by students, faculty, and administration, she’s ambitious in positive ways, etc. Yet, she has an ESA. People might look at her, scoff, and claim she surely doesn’t need her ESA. Sure, she’d survive and probably even thrive without her cat (that’s just how she is), but having her cat is genuinely helping her get through a huge personal trauma. She certainly didn’t invent the trauma, and she did not go off in pursuit of some fake papers to take her beloved pet to college with her. She’s also an incredibly strong person. She just needs some help right now.
I’m thankful that the administrators at my D’s college have had an accepting, helpful attitude towards her ESA. It was not an easy process to get it approved, but the administrators have not displayed anything but support. Besides the fact the the support for students at D’s college is incredible, I think their amazing level of support has also been there because most of them know my D–many quite well.
Be careful about judging people and lumping groups of people together.
Now, regarding actually taking animals other than service animals everywhere? I agree with those who prefer animals stay home with, of course, the exception of trained service animals, I’ve never traveled with our pets, and I wouldn’t want to sit next to a dog on a plane unless it were crated and on the ground. However, D’s cat will be flying home on any breaks in which the dorms are closed; she certainly couldn’t keep her in a place without care, and the college rightfully would not allow it. Her cat will be stowed safely, though.
I would hope that people wouldn’t jump to the erroneous conclusion with judgmental attitudes that my D is “too fragile” to fly without her pet or that she is scamming anyone either in having her cat in her dorm or on the plane, but I guess what people think is out of my control, anyway.
It’s a tricky situation. There are considerate people with a valid need for an ESA but they are not the ones who are letting their dogs harass other people or other dogs. Everyone else feels absurdly guilty because of the “bad” ones.
It can be the same way with handicapped hang tags on cars. Unless you limp out on crutches you’re likely to get the side eye from many people even if you have an legit disability, just one that isn’t clearly visible. We shouldn’t rush to judgement.
But many people bend the rules about ESAs just so they can get their pet on an airplane without having to put it below in cargo. It must be terrifying for a pet to down there, as well as dangerous. I wonder if airplanes could have a special pet section, with it’s own air circulation system, so pets can fly more easily and their dander is contained.
I have allergies and asthma but I could handle a cat in a carrier that stayed under the seat. But a cat on someone’s lap? A nervous cat who was aggressively shedding like some nervous cats do? It would have to be a several rows away from me and it would have to be a short flight.
I grew up in a household with four huge, shedding, inside dogs and a cat and really didn’t understand allergies. The first time I spent a week in the hospital with a two year old, my physician father tried to comfort me by saying no one in the family had ever had asthma and he was sure it was going to be a one time episode. Finally a couple of great aunts pointed out to him all the angel headstones in the family cemetery. The asthmatic children just hadn’t survived in an age without modern medicine. At that point, my father started researching pediatric asthma and consulting with a long time family friend, a pediatrician who had a asthmatic child himself. This was all a huge help. Our whole family had a major life style shift to accomodate my kids’ allergies.
In a public space like a theater or restaurant, we left immediately if there was a reaction, and used a nebulizer or inhaler while we monitored the child.
One reason we homeschooled was to limit exposure to asthma triggers. Even on preventative meds, our children were ending up in the hospital. Controlling their environment made a huge positive difference. We were very lucky to have the choice for me to stay home with them. Other moms I met in the hospital didn’t have that option.
We didn’t isolate them socially. We just avoided the trigger situations. Getting a normal childhood cold, virus, etc. usually triggered an episode. You can avoid a lot of that exposure in a homeschooling community, but not in a classroom for young children.
Sorry to take this so far off topic. Obviously it’s still upsetting to me to remember those years. The last hospitalization was 10 years ago. Before they began college I met with student clinic services and had their medical records on file. They were not put in dorms with (known) cats.
Well, there is this, from the IAADP:
The Department of Transportation guidance document for the Air Carrier Access Act will permit travel in the plane cabin with a therapy companion animal / emotional support animal if the handler carries documentation of a psychiatric disability on letterhead stationary, less than one year old, from a licenced mental health professional and tells the gate agent the animal is an emotional support animal needed due to the disability. You should always contact the airline before attempting to travel to ask what kind of documentation your airline requires for an emotional support animal and to ask if they require a health certificate.
And even on the HUD site, when discussing housing and ESA’s, one of the questions that must be satisfied is- is the owner physically or mentally disabled? Not a lot of people want to answer YES to that question, particularly if its a family pet they are trying to get in under false pretenses. Does the person work? Go to school? Go to the grocery, or shop in a retail store? Is it necessary for them to have the animal with them then? If not, then it would be hard to say they cannot do normal daily tasks w/o the animal. And, HUD says housing providers can ask for documentation of the disability if it is not readily apparent. Here again- just the note from family doc saying the pet keeps him calm does not rise to making the individual disabled.
So, the family doctor just saying “This animal helps Johnny keep calm” might not be enough. Many studies shows animals often help all of us keep calm. But that doesn’t reach the threshold of being psychiatrically disabled. Not a lot of people want it in writing that they are -in some form- mentally disabled.
No, a letter from a primary care doc saying that little Johnny needs a pet to make him feel better would not meet criteria for documentation for an ESA. It must come from a licensed mental health professional who has treated the patient and documented the mental health diagnosis that the patient meets criteria for and the necessity of the ESA for management or amelioration of the diagnosed disability. Sadly this gets severely abused all the time. I have personally had to politely tell people who I neither treat nor who have to my knowledge any diagnosable disabilities that I will not write them a letter so that they can take their pet on a plane or bring it into housing that is a “no pets allowed” facility. Unfortunately as has been noted above, there are professionals who are willing, for a price, to read a form filled out online and claim that they are treating someone for a diagnosed a disability. It is a blight on all mental health professionals for the few that will do this for a buck. And I admit to being pleased when I hear some of these people are brought up on review by their licensing boards of their individual states.
So a passenger needs a doctor’s certificate to prove their allergy but someone with an emotional support dog only needs a vest they bought on Amazon to bring it aboard? Something’s not right there. I’m not sure the woman in the video was really “severely allergic” or just annoyed that the animals were on board. But either way, it seems like the burden is on the wrong party here.
Note to self: when manifesting one’s rights per the Americans with Disabilities Act, the patient MUST provide proper and complete medical documentation attesting to said illness or disability.
As for the ESA situation, that is different.
But the ADA situation is abundantly clear - she had no more right to ask for the animals to be taken off the plane than anyone else, UNLESS she provided medical documentation and UNLESS it wasn’t unreasonable for the airline to accommodate her.
My best friend’s wife had surgery and has to wear a special medic alert bracelet, and she STILL has to provide medical documentation to her work, as if she would willingly wear the stupid thing (it’s freaking colorful LOL).
Seems to me that the burden needs to be on both parties in order to avoid frivolous claims.
How the airline is then to adjudicate the situation when there are two passengers with conflicting needs, I do not know. Maybe by fewest number of bumped passengers? But then how to deal with it when there is one of each? Does there need to be a guaranteed animal-free flight to the destination every day? Is this a problem that is being significantly exacerbated by the whole ESA phenomenon?
It appears from their website that Southwest is actually even less accommodating to people with allergies than the news report suggests. Their policy reads in part,
There’s nothing listed in their policy about getting a doctor’s note for severe allergies or even anything about offering a refund if a customer cannot travel due to severe allergies. Southwest’s policy allows for up to 6 animals in the cabin * not including* service or emotional support animals. They do require a doctor’s letter for an animal to qualify for the waived fee for an emotional support animal.
