Tuesday, December 08, 2015

Your Emotional Support Animal Makes Me Anxious



From last year's post
about the "Emotional Support Animal" scam:
The larger story is that a very poorly drafted regulation was written for airplane passengers. That loophole has been ripped wide by pushy, self-centered people telling lies and making extreme right claims bolstered by fake paper and store-bought decals. Toss in general ignorance on the part of poorly trained clerks facing a problem for the first time, natural confrontation avoidance, and a generalized fear of getting sued by lawyers, and you have biting dogs, kicking alpacas, disease-spreading turtles, and defecating pigs in public spaces.

The poorly written regulation that started it all off was cranked out in June 2004 by some idiot at the FAA who no doubt meant well. In their “guidance about unusual service animals” the FAA notes that "service animals" were initially meant to be guide dogs for the blind. Those animals have been permitted on commercial airlines since at least 1977 and because they are well-trained and with sensible owners who are also well-trained, they have presented virtually no problems at all.

The wrinkle is that sometime around 2003, someone at the Department of Transportation decided it was OK to expand the definition of a service animal to include "an animal used for emotional support". And an "emotional support" animal, the DOT decided, did not need to have any training at all.
Read the rest here.

1 comment:

Dog Man said...

This is not just the FAA, it is the law EVERYWHERE.
Did you know it is ILLEGAL to ask an owner to provide ANY documentation of their claims, it is even ILLEGAL to ask them what service their animal provides?
I had a cop tell me that when one of these idiots decided to bring an unruly Great Dane into a local auction, and the women called the police to complain about the auctioneer asking her to leave when she refused to provide proof of the animal's status.As we all gathered outside to watch the show with the cop, I asked her what service the dog provided her,and the cop lit into ME telling me it was illegal to ask her that.At that point I stated I have a first amendment right to ask anything I pleased, and the cop threatened to arrest me on RIOT CHARGES,LOL. I told him to go ????? Himself and go ahead, after which he kind of ignored me.
SO it is illegal to ask one of these clots without paperwork ANYTHING.