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US ends era of emotional support animals on planes

bbc.com

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Re: US ends era of emotional support animals on planes

#61

Post by 13rac1 »

superdisk wrote: post #7
hpoe wrote: post #5

So something I only recently found out myself is that there is actual no real requirements in order to register an animal as an "emotional support animal", I found that out after my sister registered her dog as an emotional support animal to get around her apartments "no pets allowed" rule. Another interesting thing is that I have a friend who builds apartments in a college town for students. The apartments for years…

The emotional support loophole abuse has been going around on Facebook and Reddit as a trick to get your animal anywhere for a while now. Everyone knows the trick now and very few people care that they're abusing the system.

This doesn't seem too far of a reach: "Abusing the system" => Taking advantage of services for people with mental and physical disabilities => Taking advantage of people with disabilities.

Re: US ends era of emotional support animals on planes

#62

Post by bluGill »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #47
DanBC wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adjustments for disabled people need to be "reasonable". It's reasonable for a blind person to take their guide dog on a plane. It's reasonable for someone with mental illness to take their well trained support animal on the plane. It's unreasonable for someone who's struggling a bit to take their pet cow on a plane.

Who decides what's reasonable, though? The whole thing is a big grey area. The rules should be explicit.

the problem with explicit is you will forget about some corner case.

Re: US ends era of emotional support animals on planes

#63

Post by 1123581321 »

paxys wrote: post #57
Miner49er wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't completely forbid the practice. Dogs are still allowed. How would they verify claims? Ask for a prescription or a note from a doctor or psychiatrist? EDIT: I'm wrong, only service dogs are allowed, so they need to be trained to do a specific task to help a person with a disability. But also, I'm pretty sure verication was already technically required. From AA's website, these forms are required: - Medical…

> How would they verify claims? Ask for a prescription or a note from a doctor or psychiatrist? Yes?

The regulations require neither of these things.

Re: US ends era of emotional support animals on planes

#64

Post by crazcarl »

maxk42 wrote: post #43
onetimemanytime wrote: post #2

not to be jerk or anything, but if I said that a cow or an elephant is the only thing that soothes me so accommodate them in a plane? How many other people should be inconvenienced by my issues?

Well the laws here are really stupid. ESAs are not covered under federal law. But service animals are. However - there is no accreditation program for service animals, so you cannot ask for proof that an animal is a service animal. You are also not allowed to ask a person what their disability is or demand they demonstrate some sort of proof of either disability or specialized training in their animal. So essentially…

This is incorrect per the article. It clearly states "Wednesday's rule change by the US Department of Transportation now says only dogs qualify as service animals."

So no, the airlines don't have to accept someone's service animal that isn't a dog.

Re: US ends era of emotional support animals on planes

#65

Post by DeRock »

adkadskhj wrote: post #56
Ansil849 wrote: post #44

I'm finding a lot of the comments in this thread to be hurtful. Yes, many were abusing the system to register pets as service animals. No, that is not a reason to forbid the practice which was genuinely helpful to people like myself who have a phobia of flying coupled with anxiety and having a service animal genuinely helps get through a flight without the need for medication. The problem is the desire to not devote…

It's also because there's a market for this even from people who aren't "trolling". Flying is difficult for pet owners, full stop. There really needs to be safe, affordable options for pet/dog owners to travel. As the horrible things airlines have done to pets makes it absolutely clear to many that we can't put our animals lives in the Airlines hands.

> There really needs to be safe, affordable options for pet/dog owners to travel.

Why? Are you suggesting some form of subsidy? Transporting live animals is expensive, and pet ownership (let alone flying with them) is not a human right. If the market does not land on a safe and affordable option, then so be it, solely the pet owner should bare that cost.

Re: US ends era of emotional support animals on planes

#67

Post by neaanopri »

Ansil849 wrote: post #44

I'm finding a lot of the comments in this thread to be hurtful. Yes, many were abusing the system to register pets as service animals. No, that is not a reason to forbid the practice which was genuinely helpful to people like myself who have a phobia of flying coupled with anxiety and having a service animal genuinely helps get through a flight without the need for medication. The problem is the desire to not devote…

I completely agree with you, and I'm thinking of blind people and some people with epilepsy who have animals which can detect and manage their seizures.

Re: US ends era of emotional support animals on planes

#69

Post by jrnichols »

hpoe wrote: post #5

So something I only recently found out myself is that there is actual no real requirements in order to register an animal as an "emotional support animal", I found that out after my sister registered her dog as an emotional support animal to get around her apartments "no pets allowed" rule. Another interesting thing is that I have a friend who builds apartments in a college town for students. The apartments for years…

> I found that out after my sister registered her dog as an emotional support animal to get around her apartments "no pets allowed" rule.

A family friend owned and managed an apartment complex and had issues with tenants buying certificates online for their pit bull and saying it was an "emotional support animal." The dog wasn't, they just wanted to get around local breed restrictions.

Apparently that is quite common.

Re: US ends era of emotional support animals on planes

#70

Post by mwfunk »

I'm all in favor of people who need them having emotional support animals, but for as long as this has been a thing I have been totally shocked at how many people I personally know (who I thought were better people than this) completely abusing it to bring their pets with them everywhere (planes or anywhere else where you don't normally take pets). And joking about abusing the system, and joking about how awesome it is that they can just pretend to have this need, et voila now they can take their pet everywhere.

And of course, the reason this was bad was because inevitably, people abusing the system would screw it up for the people who actually need it or would benefit from it. Which is what happened.

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