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.
I suppose that's your opinion but that's just not how the law works and in many cases the subjectivity is a feature not a bug.
It might be a common sense thing to say that no one would ever want or have need to use a horse as a service animal, but there are miniature horses that are service animals.
It's also reasonable to not want to want you or your family sat near a pitbull or other known aggressive breed. Everyone tells me their dog is well behaved and friendly, but I've had to scare dogs away from my kids more than once. My mom has been chased walking around her neighborhood by people violating leash laws. Every time, everyone says their dogs are well trained or well behaved.
So let's just make assumptions then. Disabled people should have a case prepared, and always be ready to argue it in front of people. Upon challenge, by people "inconvenienced" by your accommodations, you should be able to spend 2 minutes showcasing your disability, how it came to be, and plead for said accommodations. Maybe you could edit that "not to be a jerk" bit to "I'm a jerk, hence:".
When "inconvenienced" means a trip to the ER or landing a plane because you have severe allergies (like me) then the definition of who is being a jerk in the "emotional support animal" situation is a big more vague, no?
To be clear about this, your argument is that a disabled person should be able to say "I need an elephant on this plane" without having to explain why? Also, disagreeing with this point of view makes someone a jerk? :-)
Please read up on the term "Invisible Disabilities". Not every disability is obvious, not every disability is immediately provable to satisfy an adhoc request, and not every disability has immediate effects. Your suggestion would lead to people being further marginalized, if every person feels that they can barge in for 2 minutes each. Add up more and more people each stealing away 2 minutes, and that is quite a lot of time.
How would that even work, too? If a random person decides that somebody's disability doesn't exist, do they then just barge in even more than usual. "I decided that your coeliac disease didn't exist, so I used wheat as a thickener. Your fault for not explaining it better."
My point exactly. Btw, I'm one of those invisibly disabled people you mention. "Luckily", I also have massive scarring all over, so I don't have to explain myself to people as much.
Thank you, and sorry for missing the sarcasm in your post. I had interpreted your post as giving a suggestion, rather than as being the inevitable and absurd conclusion of the parent's reasoning.
None, since it would probably be deemed infeasible. I think the tendency of engineers to extrapolate "rules" to extreme cases creates a lot of noise. Rules in law, business, and society are not the same as rules in engineering - they allow for subjectivity.
A. Your examples are of animals disallowed - not allowed.
B. Those animals are obviously much more feasible, physically.
C. Regardless of how feasible they are, I simply gave a reasonable answer to the question - I didn't imply that all human systems have that same answer.
You should explain your thoughts, instead of only posting links with no context.
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, anyone can still claim any animal is a service animal and the airlines have to accommodate them. The ESA designation is NOT a service animal (although a service animal can also be an ESA). So this is something the airlines could easily disallow. I'm afraid we haven't seen the last of people abusing the system for their own convenience, however.
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.
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 had a strict no pet policy, however people started claiming they were emotional support animals and that the apartment had to let them keep them. So now the apartments just charge you a several hundred dollar fee each semester. If you can't beat em, join em.
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.
It's a little more complicated than that. Homeless people also will claim their pet is an emotional support animal. They are often homeless because they are disabled but being homeless means "Good luck jumping through bureaucratic hoops to register anything."
Sometimes someone's life comes unraveled because their disability has never been properly identified and accommodated. Being able to say "I need this" without having to jump through hoops to prove it can help such people make their lives work better.
Most studies suggest that something like one in five people has a disability. One study that asked about user needs and challenges in using stuff intentionally avoided using stigmatizing words like "disabled" or "handicapped" and more like three fifths of respondents said they had some degree of trouble doing various things and more accessible design would benefit them.
People who are only moderately disabled often try like hell to avoid getting labeled as disabled because it is stigmatizing and people start treating you like you are stupid and worthless rather than like you just need special accommodation in some areas to make your life work. Those who qualify for an official label of "disabled" are equally hostile to seeing only moderately disabled people being granted the label that grants special status and special accommodation.
The reality is that disability occurs along a continuum. It isn't an on/off switch where if you fall on this side of the line you are "normal, healthy and able-bodied" and if you fall on that side of the line you are "disabled." We try to categorize it like it works that way but it doesn't really work that way.
I understand there is a huge grey area on this subject. I specifically refer to the abusers (the only label I am applying intentionally.) I didn't mention people who are homeless. A much better explanation than I can give at this time: http://brightside-susan.blogspot.com/2011/05/people-behaving... A quote from the article:
> "Each time an employee has an encounter with a fake service dog (and yes, they know when you're lying), this brings us tangibly closer to the implementation of laws, regulations, and policies that make it harder for me to live my life without being treated as a second-class citizen."
The first thing you linked to is the personal opinion of someone with what looks like a personal blog.
I have had a college class on Homelessness and Public Policy. I homeschooled my two gifted-learning disabled sons for years, which means I effectively ran a two student school under the laws of California for years. I also spent some years homeless in part due to my own disability.
Before I was diagnosed with a serious disability in my thirties, I was routinely dismissed by people around me as merely "lazy" (while being sick all the time and one of the top students of my graduating high school class).
Lots of people who claim their animal is a "service animal" are people whose lives are in the toilet, the system doesn't work for them and they have serious issues. Inability to prove need is not actually evidence of lying.
I have a dog phobia and don't like being around them. I am all for finding some means to make sure people keep their animals under control in public. I have had lots of negative experiences with assholes who will not control their dog and who feel I am obligated to meet their dog's emotional needs and all this kind of crappy thing.
Plenty of people being dismissed as "merely abusing the system" have a real need and "abusing the system" is their only means to try to meet it in a world that is routinely hostile to their needs.
It's really complicated. Trying to sort out a better policy is not simple at all.
> The first thing you linked to is the personal opinion of someone with what looks like a personal blog.
Anything you or I write here is effectively the same thing. ;) Equal valuation. This blog does cite the ADA and IAADP though.
You seem focused on the bureaucratic hoops and seem to think I want them enforced more strictly? I haven't mentioned that. Please evaluate only the words I use. You seem to be making a point about specifics I haven't raised.
The people acting unethically/immorally and abusing the system know who they are when they do it. It's why they are so defensive. Selfish people ruining good things, once again.
Homeless people are routinely defensive because they are homeless and the entire world treats them like crap on a routine basis.
It's really not as simple as "you can tell who is abusing the system at first glance." That's not how that works. I know many people like to think the world is nice and straight forward like that, but it usually isn't.
Again, I am not referencing people who are homeless. I haven't said "you can tell who is abusing the system at first glance." either. I think we generally agree though. Thank you for the conversation.
It’s pretty infuriating. Everyone abuses the system from people who don’t like walking using the electric carts at grocery stores to this. But everyone (who works) is afraid to confront the person abusing because they don’t want to be sued.
The thing that bothered me more than anything about this is that you aren't allowed to ask for any type of verification, so people can just walk in with them anywhere. Never made sense to me.
At least to park in a handicap space you need a hang tag or a special license plate. Why not something simple like a special collar tag or card in your wallet?
A know in my state (Minnesota) a lot of places (apartments/condos) require the dog is a service dog, not just designated an "emotional support dog" in order to clamp down on people getting around housing requirements or taking their pets on planes.
You are absolutely allowed to ask for verification that an animal is a real service animal, but the people who have been conflating emotional support animals with service animals want you to believe that you can't.
Service animals have to be licensed, trained to perform a task or duty, and be easily identifiable. Misrepresenting an untrained and unlicensed animal as a service animal is fraud and illegal.
Actually, they don't need to be licensed. The only thing a business can ask is what tasks is the service dog trained to be formed.
I do think it would be better off for everyone if there was a license though. I've known people with legitimate service dogs who have had that opinion even. They wish they had a document to prove their legitimacy, as they are constantly asked for a document that doesn't exist.
That requirement always felt weird. I can’t ask what disability a person has, but I can ask what the dog is supposed to do? Because if they say it helps alert to a seizure, I just learned they possibly have chronic seizures without actually asking that.
Oh, thanks for correcting me, I thought there was a license involved in the US, or at least some kind of certification that the animal actually is trained, and that you didn't just slap a vest on your pet poodle...
as CADBOT says, there is no license (or even standards body who could lobby for / issue one). You're allowed to ask what tasks the animal performs, then deny service so long as accommodations are made.
The correct solution is for businesses to grow a backbone and do that for all animals all the time until people gaming the system with fake ESAs give up.
Generally there are charities/non-profit organizations that will do a lot of the training and help with the ongoing costs of care.
I personally don't see the argument that a separate license is needed or helpful. It's an extra cost and step that's entirely unnecessary. If you want or need a service animal you obviously have to have some way to train it and care for it, but a license is extra. Also if it is ever lost or anything you could be turned away from any public place until it's resolved. I just see it causing more issues for people than it tends to solve.
Emotional support animals don't get any special rights outside of housing, and in limited cases air and train travel. They can't be brought into areas pets are prohibited. You do need to provide verification from a physician or mental health provider to your landlord or the airline for an ESA.
Service dogs(or rarely horses) can generally go anywhere the owner can go including areas pets are prohibited. There is no formal verification, but the owner of the property or their employee can ask if this is a service dog that is required because of a disability, and what tasks it is trained to perform. If it is a cat or other animal, or not trained to perform a task, just to provide support it is not a service dog and they can be refused entry and trespassed.
Registration of service dogs would disenfranchise the disabled. About twice as many don't have photo ID as the general public, many do not own a car or have access to reliable transportation, even relatively small costs can be prohibitive
The word "prescribe" can be used outside of a medical professional authorizing the use of something. A medical professional can prescribe a treatment of aspirin, for example. That doesn't mean aspirin requires a prescription.
ESA don't require anything which is why the idea is easy to abuse, but ESA and PSA (psychiatric control animals) are real things, and under 14 C.F.R. § 382.117(e) airlines can require evidence of an animal being a service animal or an ESA/PSA, such as up-to-date documentation from a mental health professional of the ESA's necessity to the owner.
I expect not waving this is what the rules change actually is, because I don't think the DoT can just decide the ACAA is not a thing.
For a service animal, the airline can only require
> identification cards, other written documentation, presence of harnesses, tags, or the credible verbal assurances of a qualified individual with a disability using the animal.
Although it should be noted that only 23 states prohibit misrepresentation of a service animal, the main difference being that service animals are rather obviously limited as they can only be dogs or miniature horses (an other thing which makes me doubt the complete veracity of the article).
There is no registry for emotional support animals, the websites claiming to offer this are scams. You need a letter from a physician or mental health professional that the animal is needed to treat a disability.
Landlords can't charge a pet or animal fee for emotional support animals.
> 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"
Yes, this is done to avoid the risk of running afoul the ADA and ACAA. Sadly this has gotten more and more abused in recent years.
A bit of conflation in some of the comments but the "issue" is a bit of a loophole in the ADA. The ADA basically tries to minimize the burden of having a disability. So there are no licensing fees or registration or anything related to having a service animal by the government and as such businesses, landlords, etc. can't ask for something like a license or registration of a service animal as verification.
The key difference between an "emotional support animal" and a legitimate service animal is that service animals have training that directly assists with the person's disability. Easy examples are seeing-eye dogs, dogs that are trained to smell/detect low blood sugar in diabetics, and dogs that are trained to protect their owner if they have a seizure or similar.
Emotional support animals are just...emotional support and aren't trained to really do anything.
It seems like businesses were just too scared to go to battle over people bringing their pets places for fear of being accused of violating the ADA.
To be clear, I think emotional support animals are ridiculous, but the "no registration/license" piece is a very critical part of the ADA. Finally, businesses are allowed to ask what tasks a service animal has been trained to do as verification and that allowance doesn't even extend to service animals in training.
Emotional support animals aren’t “ridiculous”. They actually have some positive impact on people’s mental health, eg those with PTSD. I do take issue with abuse of the regulations. Some beneficial medications can be used recreationally, and governments give abundant clarity on legal and illegal uses. It would be harmful for people to start calling those medicines “ridiculous” because some people use them to get high or improve their performance.
I think a solution is for the government to place restrictions on emotional support animal use, eg the same way prescriptions are handled.
You're right. My most common interactions with ESAs is definitely people abusing the loophole to take their pets places which leaves a sour taste in my mouth, but there are certainly valid uses and positive impacts.
I'm a bit touchy on it because I've seen it become a real issue for people with service animals.
The no/registration piece makes 0 sense to me. Where I live, ALL dogs need to have a license and must have the tags to prove it - why not just add a certification to the tags that say it is a service animal?
This is an extra burden for having a disability which is specifically what the ADA tries to prevent. It allows anyone to train effectively any animal to perform any task that helps them with any disability they (or someone else) may have. It's ultimately these tasks and abilities that make an animal a service animal, not a registration or tag that needs to be kept up to date and costs money.
To be clear I'm talking about any registration that certifies an animal is a service animal, to my knowledge all service animals still have to have all other forms of legal registrations and tags.
It's really about the spirit of the ADA which tries to make sure that there are as few barriers as possible for people with disabilities in society. Someone else made a comment that describes how low the rates are for people with disabilities to have normal forms of ID for themselves, let alone their animals. For someone with a disability even the smallest of barriers can sometimes be insurmountable.
Is this explicitly different that animals that are trained to help with say PTSD? I know those are classified as service animals under the ADA and not ESAs.
I also mentioned in another comment below that my general interaction with ESAs is people using it as a loophole to take their pets places and causing issues for people with service animals. You're right that there are certainly good cases for it and I'm sure plenty of responsible people with ESAs that aren't part of that group.
> Is this explicitly different that animals that are trained to help with say PTSD?
Yes. As you say those are service animals, meaning they are trained to actively help e.g. a service animal could be trained to detect acute distress and actively insert themselves into the situation. An ESA is just support.
> I also mentioned in another comment below that my general interaction with ESAs is people using it as a loophole to take their pets places and causing issues for people with service animals.
I completely agree that this is a huge issue. Although people will also misrepresent service animals as most states have no sanctions about that (it's rarer because there are usually expectations about service animals, and the available "range" is extremely limited e.g. a cat or a cockatoo can not be a service 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.
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.
There is none, to little, protections in the ADA for support animals. I believe the only provisions are service dogs and horses. But apartment managers, many restaurants, and general businesses are just ignorant enough of the law to not really push it. Some restaurants are starting to push back due to hygiene.
Now the new thing is to get out of paying exorbitantly high ($500) pet fees by claiming the pet as a support animal. Competent building managers will see this coming and note that only service dogs are exempt.
I have a huge beef with "pet rent," as it's charging people a non-refundable fee for an animal each month, simply for existing. If landlords would prefer their tenants not have pets, simply do not allow them.
That's really not fair since pets do cause quite a bit of damage on average and as someone who likes pets, I feel like such a policy of not having pet rent would make it even more difficult to find a place that even allows pets.
Toddlers cause more damage than single adults. Should landlords be able to charge more for, say, a single mother with a mentally disabled child who is prone to throw things?
In both cases -- pet or children -- damages should be extracted from a security deposit. j
Makes sense to me. It's like charging a fee for smoking. Pets are going to create a certain extra amount of wear and tear, some not easily quantifiable. No matter how clean and well behaved you think your pet is.
Have been on both sides of this as a renter and landlord, and it's basically an insurance payment. We have all sorts of things for which you need to pay for insurance in order for you to have that thing in your possession. When it comes to pets, basically all apartments will require more cleaning between tenants when a pet occupied the apartment, and for some non-negligible percentage of pets there will be large bills due to accelerated wear and damage.
Is my landlord charging me rent "a non-refundable fee for a human each month, simply for existing"? Why shouldn't a landlord offer the option if that's what they're comfortable with? Why is strictly less choice better for a pet owner?
Why are you comparing children with autism to animals? You could have simply said "children", as all children are likely to cause some damage to a home that an adult would not.
Apologies, that was careless. I was recalling a specific situation of a woman and child who lived above me 5 years ago. I let the details of this lady's situation seep into my analogy and it came off really poorly.
It's not just for existing. Pets can and do cause a lot of damage. They can urinate on the floors or walls, leaving odor that is very difficult to remove. They can chew up or scratch up doors, walls, floors. A pet can easily do thousands of dollars in damage in a one-year lease term. Of course not every pet does this but you don't know in advance.
On the other hand landlords compete for tenants. So they may want to allow pets but impose a surcharge for the potential damage.
Logically, the "surcharge for potential damage" should be a security deposit, or fines and penalties against specific behavior.
You'd have the same issues with tenants that were excessively noisy, or held parties and spilled alcohol in the hallways, or scratched doors/walls/floors from moving bikes, furniture, etc. So it seems inconsistent to apply the nonrefundable fee only to the case of pets.
I have 2 decades of experience in the hotel business, and pets cause much, much more damage than toddlers. The total of pet fees collected never made up for all the damage caused. And tons of people would lie about their animal being a service animal(s). With no shame, they would declare all 3 dogs they have service animals.
Toddlers predominantly damage fragile personal items. Pets damage walls, doors, floors and furniture. Additionally, pets, especially dogs, are capable of many times more destruction in a short amount of time.
I used to work in property management and we charged extra fees each month for pet rent. I initially was against it when I started working there, but by the end I completely understood why they did it.
The reality is that animals are rougher on homes than humans are. Even things like the backyard will have more wear and tear on it with a pet than with humans and all of this has to be dealt with during turn over.
A perfect example of this is paint. During a normal turnover we would do a "tier 3" paint job. Which is to hire someone to come in with a spray gun and spray the walls white. They don't target baseboards or ceilings, but the overspray will generally cover some of it (ever notice how apartments and rentals generally have white walls, white baseboards, and white ceilings?). It is a cheap and lazy paint job that we have negotiated flat rates for $300-$400 per home. This happens no matter what.
But on a home with a pet occupant, it is nearly guaranteed that you would need to perform at least a tier 2 paint job which is generally coupled with a carpet replacement. The carpets are torn up (or peeled back if they are recoverable), the painters come in and spray the walls, baseboards, with overspray on the underlayment (under the carpet) and the ceiling edges. This usually runs us $800 - $900. So pet rent usually goes to that.
After a tier 2 paint job, a carpet contractor usually comes and re-stretches the carpet and does a carpet shampoo. But on a home with a pet occupant this has to be replaced since hair and dirt that most people don't notice, can cause allergies for the next tenant. So with a pet occupant our turnover cost goes from a standard $200 for re-stretching, as much as $1,200 for fresh carpet. Pet fees go to that.
A final turnover item is the backyard. Normally a lawn care company comes to do a standard touch up on the yard. This includes mowing, trimming, leaf blowing, etc, just to make the home presentable for walk-through. But with a pet, the grass is usually thinner after the pet use, and needs some re-seeding. Sometimes it is destroyed with holes or previous renter patches. Fences often need fixing (which gets really expensive, even if it is just a few boards) and so on. A standard lawn turnover usually costs $50. But with a pet it usually is $100+ and I have seen extreme cases where it is in the thousands.
This all comes from someone who owns a big dog that I love. My dog is well behaved. He never has accidents in the house and for the most part doesn't cause noticeable damage. But there are minor things that you just don't notice that I have only seen now that I have experienced it through property management.
Pets really do cause more wear and tear on homes than human-only occupied homes. That is why there are pet fees. They know that more is going to be done when you move out and those fees contribute to limiting that.
Now many renters have learned that if they claim that a pet is an emotional support animal, that they can avoid pet rent. But the reality is that if you claim a pet as an emotional support animal, that you can basically kiss your deposit goodbye. The company that I worked for was pretty good about giving back deposits. There was a $400 non-refundable deposit that we collected upon move in that you never got back. THis covers standard turnover stuff like tier 3 painting and carpet re-stretching. So if you leave the house in good condition, then we can give you everything other than that $400 back, and usually did. If you have a pet, then the extra rent from pet rent is calculated to cover the upgrades to tier 2 paint jobs and carpet replacement jobs. So again, you get your deposit back unless something is beyond normal wear.
But if you avoid pet rent with the emotional support animal, then that is fine. They won't charge you pet rent, but you will certaintly not get any of your deposit back. The owner or property manager still has to do the carpet replacement, yard fixes, and extra painting regardless of whether you pay pet rent o...
What I don't get is why can't this occur via a massive deposit on the front end, that the landlord can then itemize and prove when the tenant moves out? Rent forces all people to pay a monthly charge for their pet, regardless if their pet is a disaster or well behaved.
A security deposit is a legal term treated differently than rent, and can become a subjective thing that can be litigated. It's much more secure to simply demand it as rent.
Hotels discount rooms all the time for guests they know have a very low likelihood of causing damage. The probability of a person with a pet causing damage must be sufficiently high that it makes sense to charge extra. There's plenty of competing landlords and hotel businesses, and if there was economic opportunity in doing it the way you said, it would be done.
It's not just pets though. Hotels will charge more for wedding parties, who are far likelier to cause noise complaints, damage etc, than a crew of workers who will be sleeping, going to work, rinse repeat.
> A security deposit is a legal term treated differently than rent, and can become a subjective thing that can be litigated. It's much more secure to simply demand it as rent.
Oh, I realize why landlords prefer it. I just don't think it holds up under scrutiny. If you're my tenant and I charge you $100/month for dog rent on your new puppy, who causes $0 damage and lives for 14 years, I've extracted $16,800 from you, $0 of which will go toward rehabbing the apartment of dog damages when you leave.
The naive $0 in this example is exactly the issue. Pet owners don’t notice the damage and wear (over a dog’s entire lifetime, substantial), so they contest it when they are wrong. If an expense is effectively guaranteed to be occurred, it should be paid.
Additionally, a landlord will want to work on the space more often than once every 14 years. A security deposit does not cover this.
Additionally a tenant renting for 14 years is making a suboptimal financial decision regardless of pet ownership. Much more than $15k would be unnecessarily spent, for many people. A tenant who wants to get the better end financially, especially a pet owner, will buy or at least keep the landlord honest about market costs of the rental.
I looked for it on youtube but couldn't find an old Saturday Night Live sketch with the players talking about things they ruined for everyone. It was "this is why we can't have nice things" before it's time. The only one I remember was John Belushi saying that he would go out hitchhiking and then murder the people who picked him up. Which thinking about it doesn't really sound funny but in context was actually.
Yep. My wife and I did this and flew first class with two dogs. There is an element of "you cant ask me why I need this animal" from the ADA.
Then again, I had a therapist who vouched for this and actually do have mental health problems that my Shepherd without a doubt helps me with.
No way in hell I am putting the dogs in the cargo hold. The passengers around us and flight attendents were absolutely enamored with how well they behaved.
While I tend to agree that this has been abused - it frustrates me that obnoxious children get a pass.
I wish there were better options for people to travel with their pets over long distances. There are plenty of horror stories of pets who have died in cargo. I would be willing to pay for a seat, or even a row, to take my dog on a cross country flight.
Setting aside the absurd cases, like emotional support peacocks, I think a lot of the emotional support animal shenanigans are simply people not wanting to cargo their pet and not having the time to drive them across the country.
We actually had to take advantage of this loophole in order to get back to Europe with our dog during the pandemic, since no airline flying from the US accepted animals in the cargo hold.
But in general, yes, I'd be willing to pay for their own seat or row, just like when traveling with him by train we need to buy a special dog ticket.
I have never abused this, but I have flown with dogs a few times. It is such a huge pain in the ass. To make things worse, a lot of airline reps (you often have to call to book) really have no idea what the real rules are. Some legs have cage size restrictions, some airports have temp controlled areas, some don't (so you have to pay attention to the weather at lay overs)... the list goes on.
My experience is that it's quite easy flying on a major carrier with a dog that fits under the seat. Many airports have started to add pet bathrooms as well.
About a decade ago I used a service "We Move Pets", who at the time was specializing in transporting pets across North America (CA/US) for pro sports players, NBA and NHL etc. It wasn't cheap (and required I go get special vaccinations and paperwork, understandable) but it worked out great - they were passing by my city and had room on the van to take on another pet to the same destination I was going.
Looks like they're out of business now after a quick Google, but maybe it'll give you some hints where to look for clues - there has to be more of these companies out there doing this kind of thing, as I was led to believe was popular/common (?) for pro sports players to want their pet with them at training camps & such (hearsay by me). As mentioned, it was not cheap but I was also paying for a kennel at the destination for a few days until I could get there myself.
I'm also surprised the players didn't just get to bring the pets on the charter plane they travel around the country on, if only for that initial move.
May be why the service failed, the athletes can do that. Or maybe that's what the service was needed: when you sign as a free agent or get traded there isn't any charter plane heading to your new destination; it's up to you to get there.
They provided a breakdown on the invoice for me, stripping out all the sensitive info (reminder this was a decade ago):
Item #: Transport Fee (small animal)
Unit price: $495.00
Description: Total of 1734 Miles (fuel surcharge)
Unit price: $246.80
Sometimes a plane is not an option - I was moving, a large moving truck was transporting the house, while I was transporting the items they could not carry on their truck (liquids, firearms, ammunition) across state lines. Bringing a pet along while trying to maintain eyesight on a vehicle full of sensitive items was not in my best interest.
“I think a lot of the emotional support animal shenanigans are simply people not wanting to cargo their pet and not having the time to drive them across the country.”
That’s what we did when we flew to Germany with our dog last year. Too many stories about pets dying in cargo. Our small dog just sat on my lap the whole time and a lot of people and children stopped by to pet the dog and give treats. I think it made the flight better for all. But we knew that she wouldn’t make trouble and wouldn’t have taken her if we had had the slightest doubt. I guess some other pet owners go on board with problematic animals.
Yeah, this. I once actually turned down a job offer in part because there wouldn't be a way to transport my cat internationally without subjecting him to the horrors of airlines that might put him in cargo, or worse, promise to let him be in the cabin and then put him in cargo anyway.
I have a pretty unpopular take on this, being married to someone with severe pet allergies. That take is, dogs (and cats) have no place on an airplane, and responsible adults shouldn't get pets that they can't find sitters for or board while they are away.
Planes are enclosed-air spaces, and the allergens from your dog make anyone with allergies miserable for the entire duration of the flight. Every single time we end up on a plane with a dog (even the "hypoallergenic" ones), my wife ends up sick. Not to mention the fact that there are plenty of people with severe phobias of dogs, and that the animals themselves tend to be extremely uncomfortable on flights. That last factor has actually led to a number of innocent people sitting next to folks with dogs getting bit, etc on planes.
Actual service animals do still belong, because they provide an actual service, are extremely well-trained, and are worth the allergen/phobia tradeoff because folks who need them literally need them.
I wanted to post the same comment but was afraid of the wrath of pet lovers. I have the same concerns regarding pet phobias and allergies.
And to your point about pet sitters or boarding. My family did not choose to get another pet at some point while I was growing up because the cost of boarding while traveling was just too much.
I wish pet culture would be dialed back a few notches on the dial.
I get sick around people's dogs from allergies like your wife. Thanks for voicing your comment; I feel like pet owners usually don't take things very seriously when I talk about getting sick from dogs.
> That take is, dogs (and cats) have no place on an airplane, and responsible adults shouldn't get pets that they can't find sitters for or board while they are away.
And for the situation where you’ll be away for a long time? It’s cheaper to take a pet aboard a plane than to board for a few weeks. But there should be better options than either (1) the cargo bay or (2) in the cabin with everyone else.
> Actual service animals do still belong, because they provide an actual service, are extremely well-trained, and are worth the allergen/phobia tradeoff because folks who need them literally need them.
Emotional support animals absolutely are a thing. The problem is everyone abuses the idea. But for someone with depression, just having your dog or cat next to you can keep you sane better than your medicine can. I know, because that someone is me. Do I take my pet everyone? No, but they absolutely do help when needed.
> And for the situation where you’ll be away for a long time?
Again, if that's your life, don't own pets. We had a dog, and having to deal with her when we would go on vacations or even just needing to stay late at work knowing she had been inside and would need to go out was a constant hassle. She was a sweet dog and loved but I'm not ever having another one.
As far as traveling on a plane, I don't see any other practical options, I could imagine something like a kennel area in the passenger compartment but cannot imagine any airline actually providing that unless they could consistently fill it for fees that make up for the loss of the passenger seats, which seems unlikely.
How does this fail after a moments scrutiny? Pet owners have an alternative: put them in cargo. People are categorically more important than pets. To suggest anything else is insulting, frankly.
(Note: putting kids and pets in the same category seems a bit bold.)
I'll entirely support this take, as one of those people (allergy side of things).
I'll also mention that it's the contact side of it too. If I touch anyone's dog, I have to wash my hands, because one absentminded rub of my face is all it takes to go full allergy misery. Sitting on any furniture that a dog has been on for a length of time (say, your couch)? Also going to cause me problems.
Pets shed, airplanes have carpeted floors and airplanes aren't exactly deep cleaned between flights, at least in non-COVID times.
If your dog was in that seat or on the floor of that row on the last flight, and I'm in it on this flight, I'm likely going to be both personally miserable and making everyone else around me miserable for my entire flight.
> "Pets shed, airplanes have carpeted floors and airplanes aren't exactly deep cleaned between flights, at least in non-COVID times."
Just to reinforce the truthfullness of this. Most planes only get cursory garbage removal between flights. Thats it! They are only cleaned every 24 - 48 hours. But a plane might make 4-12 flights between cleanings, and even these cleanings aren't serious. They do a vacuum and spray sanitizer on main surfaces, but that's it.
In fact one of the reasons that diseases spread so much on planes is not because of people on your flight or the re-circulated air as most people assume. But often disease spreads from people that sat where you are sitting on a flight 1-3 flights ago.
And of course allergenic have similar characteristics to viruses and bacteria. So they follow the same pattern.
My aunt flies frequently for business (at least once a week). She has routinely had to move because of people with pets (or "emotional support animals"). This isn't to be rude, but because she is highly allergic and it is not only uncomfortable for her, but dangerous.
Have you ever been on a flight where someone with peanut allergies is on the plane? The flight attendants announce that someone on the plane is allergic, so peanuts will not be served on the plane as a matter of safety.
The same courtesy should exist for people with allergies to pets. Many of them have to spend the whole flight concerned that they might have a reaction because they are forced to share the same re-circulated air as a pet that is potentially dangerous to them.
I'm sympathetic to this point, but won't it continue to be a problem as long as airlines still allow pets?
The DOT ruling cites an industry statistic that 784k pets and 751k ESAs were transported in 2017 [1]. I can certainly believe that it's grown more lopsided since then, but it still seems that a significant number of flights would have animals on them after this rule takes effect.
>Really it looks to me like there is a market for safe and reliable pet air transport. Why have carriers not addressed this?
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As long as all flights are forced to accept service animals without verification for free, it's not a viable business to have flights exclusively for pets.
That pet owners must deal with the headaches of owning a pet, and not unduly inconvenience others, seems like a perfectly reasonable stance to me.
In fact, some animals are not allowed to be kept as pets at all. I'm fine with extending that to all types of animals. Dogs are out there spreading covid right now but I can't go to the gym. That makes so much sense.
I don't understand the pet owners' sense of entitlement.
I didn't say these words, nor imply them. I find it befuddling how you act as if non-owners of pets are the selfish ones. Let's replace "dogs" with "cigarettes". After all, smokers like nicotine as much or more than dog owners like dogs. Am I also selfish if I don't wish to endure sitting next to a smoker on a flight?
Lots of things inconvenience me but are inescapable or benefit society at large. Dogs are neither of these things, and the burden of owning them should not be externalized to those who derive no benefit from them.
I will sorely regret never using this opportunity to fly home for thanksgiving with my emotional support turkey - that would later go on to provide emotional support for the whole family
Frozen turkeys fare perfectly well in regular checked luggage. High altitude is cold, so you don't need a cooler. One year long ago I celebrated Thanksgiving in a nation that has no turkeys...
It was really a matter of time. It was obvious people were using this to simply fly with their pets rather than boarding them. It only takes a few people abusing something... (in this case, from my observation, I think it was quite more than 'a few').
Good. This was rife with abuse from people gaming the system, and delegitimizing the use of support dogs by handicapped people who actually needed help.
And the airlines would do nothing because they couldn't be seen as the bad guy (or it's just unfashionable to have rules that need to be respected these days).
A ton of them. Pretty much any chamber of commerce, the NFL, many of the big software foundations (though some are 501(c)(3) organizations). So they range from small and local to very big money.
"Hello, competitors in my industry. We think we can build a larger moat by lobbying for regulation that will make it harder for other competitors. Would any of you like to join us in having less competition?"
Setting one up is easy; you just incorporate. Influence ranges from "zero" to "able to get meetings with Congresspeople on important committees". The meetings are the important part. You can't actually bribe your way to power, but you get to tell them what you want and how that benefits their constituents.
That's easy for an airline, which employs a lot of people and impacts travel for everybody. They use a group to speak with one voice and (perhaps more importantly) know who to talk to (which isn't just elected representatives but also the decision making people at in the executive branch).
I remember a radio host ranting that in his flight there was a lady with a pony as an emotional support animal, there was also a joke about a guy who registered a swarm of bees as emotional support animal. I wonder if that was the case that forced these emotional support animal in planes.
There was a lady in my hometown who had a shetland pony and took the city bus with it. It was quite the double take when I saw a horse getting off a city bus!
I am not a lawyer, but I have a long standing professional interest in the ADA.
It ain't over until it has been to court. The hurdle for the new agency rule is to demonstrate that this is not a violation of civil rights under the American's with Disabilities Act. For the past thirty years (almost) that's tended to be a high bar. How high? Well emotional support animals were flying because the airline industry didn't want to test it in court.
The agency rule gives the airlines additional cover. But an agency rule doesn't usually trump federal statute and the ADA doesn't explicitly delegate interpretation to ordinary federal agencies. Just the DoJ and the DoJ can be challenged in the Federal courts.
It might be over, but I wouldn't go all in betting on it. YMMV.
How is this so? The ADA's website very clearly says, "Dogs whose sole function is to provide comfort or emotional support do not qualify as service animals under the ADA."
The FAA rule here is based on the Air Carrier Access Act, which prohibits airlines from discriminating on the basis of disability, and pretty much leaves it up to the FAA to set applicable regulations.
The FAA is acting under the assumption that this act gives them the ability to regulate differently than the ADA. However many of the changes made in this ruling are actually making the regulations more aligned with DOJ's ADA regulations.
So if a court were to rule that the FAA needs to follow the ADA rules completely the main change would be eliminating the new optional (airlines choice) form requirement for service animals.
Emotional support animals have zero protection under the ADA. They are only recognized under the Fair Housing Act (and is mostly an artifact of caselaw there) and under the FAA regulations being revised here.
Unless/until courts rule that emotional support animals must be allowed as reasonable accomidations in public places under the ADA (rather than just under the Fair Housing Act) I expect this exclusion of ESAs will be allowed to stand.
A clear example of “This is why we can’t have nice things”, if ever there was one. This definitely sucks from a consumer point of view, but understandable when the focus becomes passenger safety. Service dog training can be verified and as such abusers can be filtered out of consideration.
>When it is not obvious what service an animal provides, only limited inquiries are allowed. Staff may ask two questions: (1) is the dog a service animal required because of a disability, and (2) what work or task has the dog been trained to perform. Staff cannot ask about the person’s disability, require medical documentation, require a special identification card or training documentation for the dog, or ask that the dog demonstrate its ability to perform the work or task.
My mistake. But I think it might be similar to the ADA rules since the website specifies documentation only for emotional support animals or psychiatric service animals, so I assume
>Airlines can request specific documentation and/or 48-hours advance notice for emotional support animals and psychiatric service animals.
Also, I assume that Dept of Transportation website is now out of date with the newest rule changes requiring only service dogs.
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 resources to verifying the legitimacy of individual claims and instead banning the practice wholesale. Honestly, why make a mockery of this? Chastise people who are obviously trolling or scamming the system.
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.
> If the market does not land on a safe and affordable option, then so be it, solely the pet owner should bare that cost.
Right now the problem for pet owners (of which I am one) is that there are no acceptable options, even at a significantly increased cost. Putting a pet in the luggage compartment is not acceptable, and airlines basically don't give you any other option unless your pet is small enough to fit in its carrier under your seat, which very few pets are. Airlines have options to support people traveling with infants and small children; similar options for people traveling with pets, even if they cost more, would be helpful.
> Putting a pet in the luggage compartment is not acceptable, and airlines basically don't give you any other option
Well, whats your suggestion then? If there was a better option, it feels like the airlines would have taken advantage of that opportunity. My guess is that the alternatives are too logistically/operationally expensive, and the pet owners aren't willing to bear that cost.
> Airlines have options to support people traveling with infants and small children
I see a lot of this sentiment in the comments, comparing infants and pets. One is essential to the continuation of our species. The other is a comfort, choice and privilege. It makes sense that our willingness to accept and subsidize is completely different between the two. You don't get a dependent tax deduction either, just because you have a dog.
A poster upthread said he would be quite willing to purchase a second seat for his pet if the airline would let him. So would I.
> I see a lot of this sentiment in the comments, comparing infants and pets. One is essential to the continuation of our species. The other is a comfort, choice and privilege.
Air travel is also a comfort, choice, and privilege. Suggesting that airlines could, for example, sell people a seat for their pet is not equating infants or children and pets. It's a business suggestion, that's all.
> 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.
Not at all lol. What is the option though currently, renting a private jet?
edit: To think of it differently, the airlines have chosen, and that choice of theirs resulted in deaths of pets, repeatedly. They want to let pet owners pay for tickets but not give them the safety of traveling without killing their pet.
If they're going to allow pet travel it should have safety regulations just like people - that don't result in pets being left on a 130deg tarmac for literal hours, and dying.
The "free market" should not get to decide things that kill people, pets, etc.
The problem is the desire to not devote resources to verifying the legitimacy of individual claims and instead banning the practice wholesale. Honestly, why make a mockery of this? Chastise people who are obviously trolling or scamming the system.
It would have required a lot of resources to verify every individual claim and that would have raised prices for everyone. The burden of proof has been shifted to where it should always have been: on the person wanting to bring the animal.
That burden of proof has already existed in the form of having to file the requisite paperwork including a letter from a doctor as well as a specific animal behavior form. It was not just a matter of claiming $random_animal is an emotional support animal. The problem appears to be that airlines ignored the requisite paperwork or the paperwork was fraudulent (for example written by doctors who are family friends).
No, the problem was that airlines did not think they were allowed to examine the paperwork because ADA proponents told them it would violate the ADA to actually verify claims related to emotional support animals. (And in CA, lower-level courts have actually ruled to that effect.)
The importance of the new rule is twofold: first, it lets the airlines know that it does not violate the ADA to restrict emotional support animals, and second, it permits airlines to require verification that an animal is actually required for support reasons, emotional or otherwise.
The paperwork was still required. So what exactly are you suggesting? That passengers forged medical paperwork en masse, knowing that airlines would not verify it? Is there evidence that this was happening anywhere?
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.
Service animals like you described are not the same as emotional support animals, which are not trained to perform specific tasks or even necessarily to behave well in public. They're just regular animals that provide some psychological benefit to their owner.
"Emotional support animals, comfort animals, and therapy dogs are not service animals under Title II and Title III of the ADA. [...] It does not matter if a person has a note from a doctor that states that the person has a disability and needs to have the animal for emotional support. A doctor’s letter does not turn an animal into a service animal."
This post is about emotional support animals, not service animals. Your animal, who's helping you feel better despite your phobia, is not a service animal. This is exactly because people keep blurring the line between these 2 different situations that airlines, restaurants and other businesses have to implement "a-hole policies".
Service dogs tend to have pretty regular grooming regimens to minimize dander exposure. They're also well-trained not to make as much noise or interact with people.
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.
I'm with you on the overall abuse of the system. But given that the alternative is often putting the animal in the cargo hold, it's understandable. It's too bad regulators haven't banned that practice while they're at it.
> I'm with you on the overall abuse of the system. But given that the alternative is often putting the animal in the cargo hold
That is hardly the only alternative. There are other forms of travel and it is quite likely that your pet will be better off at home with a sitter or boarded while you're gone.
I personally tend to do inconvenient things instead of justifying the least worst expedient option, but it's wrong to pretend that everyone does. From what I've read about stowing your pet, it's basically inviting animal abuse (being left to sit on a hot tarmac, etc).
> A lot of people are very attached to their pets, there's nothing wrong with that. Particularly single people living alone without kids (I fall in that bucket).
I'm in that category as well, but that by no means entitles me to abuse measures meant to help the genuinely disabled for my own convenience.
> by no means entitles me to abuse measures meant to help the genuinely disabled for my own convenience.
The decision wasn't for my personal convenience. It's much more convenient to throw an animal in the cargo hold. It really is not fun to deal with an animal with you on a crowded plane. Convenience is not the motivating factor at least for me... it's simply treating the animal humanely, which to me means avoiding throwing them in the cargo hold for long haul flights.
Then you should have absorbed the inconvenience of driving cross-country, not abusing a system meant to help people that need it.
Also, I'm perplexed by people's use of the word "humane" when it comes to pets. If you want to treat them humanely (as you would other humans), open your front door and let them walk out to freedom. I've owned and will own pets again...but it's preposterous to compare the animal to the human.
> If you want to treat them humanely (as you would other humans), open your front door and let them walk out to freedom.
This is quite reductive considering that most pets are animals that have been domesticated by humans for hundreds and thousands of years.
In many cases we've bred them towards certain tasks and behavioral patterns, in the process we also bred out of them traits they often would need to survive in nature.
When humans did that then humans took on a responsibility, you can't just handwave that away with "these are animals, they are unworthy of any consideration".
> I've owned and will own pets again...but it's preposterous to compare the animal to the human.
It's preposterous to claim humans are not animals to justify inhumane treatment of other living, and in many cases highly emphatic, beings.
And not to get me wrong here: I'm not some kind of hardcore vegan who thinks all animal products should be banned. I'm merely recognizing that as the dominant species on this planet we have certain obligations towards the rest of it's inhabitants and particularly those we've utilized to get us where we are today.
Just because "humane" is related to "human", it doesn't mean it applies only to humans. Also it's silly to allow cats on planes while prohibiting dogs.
Let's say my way of self-medicating for anxiety during flights is to get wasted. Does this now entitle me to be a drunk asshole on the flight?
No, it does not. This is how I view those who abuse this loophole. Find another way to travel that doesn't impact everyone else in the aluminum tube traveling 550mph.
I love all the downvotes with no explanation about how this is a defensible practice in any way.
I could understand if airlines kept a blacklist for people who have animals out of control, but they don't even do that right now with their absurd overcharging. I could also understand putting down a refundable deposit and a $20-40 charge(though you can bring much heavier carry-ons for free).
The airlines' practices are indefensible. They are wildly overcharging and it is clearly a scam.
It is sad they are closing this loophole that allowed people to end run the scammers.
I didn't downvote you, but your original comment was extremely generalized which makes it annoying to argue against, because you have to point out all the caveats or else people will cling on to them each subsequent iteration.
Eg:"Not all animals are 10lbs, not all animals fit under a chair, not all airlines charge $250, not all flights are the same distance, it's not just a carry-on (disingenuous) not all flights make money (so how can you claim it's a scam when they lose money)
Etcetera. It's just a tedious and lopsided way to argue.
It's worth noting that the Department of Transportation final ruling devotes a section to economic impact [1], and estimates a ~$55M increase in fees paid by passengers traveling with ESAs to airlines.
> The current policy amounts to a price restriction which requires that airlines forgo a potential revenue source, as airlines are currently prohibited from charging a pet fee for transporting emotional support animals
> Removing the current requirement that carriers must transport emotional support animals free of charge will allow market forces (i.e., carriers as producers and passengers as consumers) to set the price for air transportation of emotional support animals as pets. This provision will allow carriers to charge passengers traveling with emotional support animals (dogs and other accepted species on board of an aircraft) with pet transportation fees. This represents a transfer of surplus from passengers to airlines, and does not have implications for the net benefits calculation of the final rule."
All airlines as far as I'm aware do charge around $125 per flight. Distance doesn't matter.
I think it is reasonable to charge more for larger animals. If your dog takes up a seat then a ticket price is a fair price.
If you have a well behaved animal it is basically just a carry-on.
If some flights aren't profitable that doesn't justify price gouging people with animals that weigh nothing and use up no jet fuel. Increase ticket prices and baggage prices. That actually makes sense.
So at what point do you have so many constraints that you "don't get to do it"? You've mentioned you need your animal, but you can't afford a one-way car rental, or a hotel, and that flying is affordable regardless of what happens to folks with allergies. At what point is there not a workable solution in completing your travel task?
I love my dog. He's my best and most sycophantic friend. If I'm going anywhere he might be allowed, he's with me.
I'd be damned if I put him in a crate at the bottom of an airplane for 10-hours straight.
When I worked jobs as a janitor, and as a retail worker, I have at various times had clean up the shit, piss vomit, and any number of other bodily expulsions produced by 'emotional support' animals, invariably left untouched and without comment by their owners, or argued with people whose pets growl and bark at everyone if they aren't muzzled. I can't imagine being a flight attendant trying to manage that with a potentially belligerent owner for 10 hours on a plane.
No matter how well-behaved your animal is next time, if you aren't traveling over the ocean, please just drive, so you aren't putting the burden of your pet's presence of everyone else.
This is exactly how I feel about handicapped parking spaces. If I could pay for a spot right next to the door I would but they don't offer that and schlepping myself all the way across the parking lot makes me feel uncomfortable. Or at least sweaty.
I haven't gotten far enough to see how expensive it actually is but there are services that will transport your pet. Seems a lot better than air as they have more room and get checked on regularly.
I generally trust people with physical disabilities to "self-medicate". If someone with a wheelchair says that something will help them live like a normal person, I'm inclined to think they're telling the truth.
But an awful lot of mental health issues are ones where the people tend to make terrible choices when it comes to dealing with their mental health (not every disease, but an awful lot these days). A lot of these disabilities are sustained and enabled by poor coping strategies (e.g. avoiding things they don't like, acting in destructive ways, expecting and getting special treatment, etc).
What about the cases where allowing people to use their mental health as an excuse is making their mental health worse?
I don't think criminalizing "poor coping strategies" is likely to be an effective intervention, if the health and well-being of the people engaging in them is your concern.
Yes, as a blind person I support restrictions on emotional support animals, which is a concept that has been abused more often than it is used. I'm sympathetic to people who want to bring their animals with them, but pretending that your animal is needed to support you emotionally isn't the answer. If you want to create a movement to allow animals at every venue, then start it and society can have that debate. But fibs about medical necessity, and sending away to get a certificate from a random website, isn't the answer.
it worked in the sense that we now have "wink-wink nudge-nudge" recreational weed in states where it would not be politically feasible to have it explicitly legalized. it's still an abuse of the system. MMJ practices in medical-only states are basically the weed equivalent of pill mills. jury's still out on whether this will have any lasting implications, but I do wonder if this doesn't detract from the legitimacy of weed as a bona-fide medicine.
As someone who is attempting to employ weed for its bona-fide medicinal properties while having little personal interest in it, gatekeeping it behind the backwards medical industry would be extremely counterproductive. Doubly so for for a drug that the establishment doesn't have much experience with, and therefore won't necessarily recommend.
Our current healthcare system is a disgrace of paternalism and bureaucracy, amounting to a constructive denial of care. If anything many more drugs need to be made available directly over the counter - a consultation with the pharmacist should be enough.
I've arrived at these conclusions even with most of the costs being covered by Medicare (family member), good relationships with providers, intelligence/bandwidth to understand what they do, and now free telehealth visits. I can't even imagine the financial-bureaucratic world of pain for people on private "insurance" (or even worse, without) trying to get care for themselves while the system just milks them.
Keep in mind that an Emotional Support Animal <> Service Animal. It appears they will still allow service animals, but not the "I just need my Great Dane by me on the flight damnit!!" emotional support animals.
Is there a limit to the number of service animals that can be on board a plane at any given time? It seems like the airlines will happily allow an unlimited # of passengers to pay $200 to fly with their pet under the seat in front of them.
They should just make the back three rows specific for people with dogs. That would at least force people to decide how much they want to bring the dog with them.
I have a pretty unpopular take on this, being married to someone with severe pet allergies. That take is, dogs (and cats) have no place on an airplane, and responsible adults shouldn't get pets that they can't find sitters for or board while they are away.
Planes are enclosed-air spaces, and the allergens from your dog make anyone with allergies miserable for the entire duration of the flight. Every single time we end up on a plane with a dog (even the "hypoallergenic" ones), my wife ends up sick. Not to mention the fact that there are plenty of people with severe phobias of dogs, and that the animals themselves tend to be extremely uncomfortable on flights. That last factor has actually led to a number of innocent people sitting next to folks with dogs getting bit, etc on planes.
Actual service animals do still belong, because they provide an actual service, are extremely well-trained, and are worth the allergen/phobia tradeoff because folks who need them literally need them.
The amount of entitlement that pet owners have to impose the downsides of their pets on others boggles my mind sometimes.
> Actual service animals do still belong, because they provide an actual service, are extremely well-trained, and are worth the allergen/phobia tradeoff because folks who need them literally need them.
If your opinion includes that proviso then then I can’t see how’s unpopular! It is quite reasonable overall.
I kind of know why, but I think I'd like to have some sort of "super-normative" service for most things. No accommodations, no changes, no talk. You board your plane, stand on a conveyor and it takes you to your slot, you bring your own urine and poo bag if you want, the airline charges you for damage to the slot. No dogs, no cats, no nothing. No "can I get a this".
For the DMV, you have a checklist and you walk up with everything on the checklist and the robot sends you off if you meet the checklist.
For stores, you have full facial-recognition and single-entry gateways. Violation is a full ban from the store. Digital signed payment only, no cash.
I mean, I get why it is, but for someone normative, not having to deal with people who (often for no fault of their own) have harder lives would be just so much better.
Well, if well-intentioned one could see this as yielding Pareto-optimal outcomes. We could improve service for normative users at the DMV, perhaps charging them for the privilege, and use that to serve other users better.
The USPS does this already and I can't see that it's anything but good.
I'd actually support the DMV example. The same for the Post Office. I'd like a trap door at each service counter spot, and the people who show up and are packing/taping/addressing their parcels at the counter would be dropped into the basement, beaten, and thrown out the back door.
Reading the comments on this thread is genuinely depressing. It's amazing how callous people can be to simply say "good" and move on, nevermind that people actually benefited massively from this and that most of those people used it in good faith, and likely did not attempt to bring ostriches and ponies aboard.
Not to mention the comments that say something to the effect of "well even if it did help a few people, it drove up prices for everyone". The implication being that disabled people only deserve accommodations (and therefore the right to participate in society) when they are convenient for everyone/companies.
It's very telling that these are the responses of the community when it comes to disabled people rather than the responses we see on other threads about how some framework or Salas is dropping support for some beloved feature, i.e. responses such as "why can't we try X? Won't Y work?"
I don't really care how many people "milked the system". It's no skin off my nose that they got away with something.
The better question, I believe, is how often flights were disrupted by poorly trained animals. It certainly happened; how much? Then we can at least attempt to compare the benefits against the actual costs.
The impression I get is that a lot of people don't care about the costs. They simply care that there was a rule in place that people circumvented, and they resent that a lot.
Airline companies care about the costs. I can't speak for everyone, but I'm also not comfortable being that close to an animal from random people, especially ones that have proven they can be dangerous.
If I was encountering a service animal every once in a while from a disabled person, it might be okay. But it feels like everyone other person has one, and I have no idea what the owner or trainer is like and that raises the risk profile quite a bit.
There's a very high likelihood that the same people that ignore leash laws are on flights with an animal in close quarters to me.
I think you're beating down a strawman you created. Nobody is against accessibility for disabled.
The problem is that there were no standards around this policy and it was abused without any clear indication that it helped anyone. There is also little clinical evidence that ESAs ameliorate patient symptoms, and much less that they help around travel.
Policies around ESAs, like anything, require effort to implement and support, and therefore need good evidential support ... instead of an emotional appeal.
There is a concerning amount of strawman comments that hinge on conflating service animals with emotional support animals. No one said anything about disabled people, we are talking about people who want their Caucasian Shepard to join them in economy class for no other reason than wanting their dog.
I know it's totally unrealistic, but I really wish it was economically viable to run an airline that was 100% first class and had great customer service and a strict "no babies or assholes" rule. I can't afford to charter a plane for every flight, but I would definitely pay 50-100% over a regular first class ticket to never have to deal with the annoyance of flying on any major US carrier.
My wife is a medical provider and she had a patient once ask her to write a release for her "emotional support chicken". Yeah; this was being abused.
In case you're wondering; no, she didn't write the release. The people scamming the system (drug seekers, etc...) realized pretty quickly not to go to her because she won't give them what they want.
for some reason, on my last long haul flight on a 250+ people airplane I counted at least 20 cats and dogs being boarded (in cabin, not hold). Only one of them was classed as a service dog. I was hoping for the worst as I never seem so many animals on a flight before but in the end the flight was almost uneventful. BUT... in the middle of the night, a cat did wandered about the isles, and the stewardess did have to go catch it and look for the owner who clearly didn't mind a wandering cat.
If this trend continues (of loose animals in cabin) I bet we'll start having serious problems between pets and people inside an enclosed metal tube. Flying experience is already bad enough...
IMO the correct path from the get-go was only allowing licensed therapy dogs. It's still not perfect, but unlike "emotional support animals" there are actually pretty strict testing guidelines. I went through it with one of my old dogs to volunteer at a children's shelter and the testing authorities that I worked with took it VERY seriously. Likely because I'm sure they'd face pretty serious backlash if a dog they passed were to attack someone at a nursing home/hospital.
The support animal thing of "I just need this animal near me" without any regards to the temperament of the animal itself never made sense to me.
We recently relocated with our dog on a 13 hour flight. Everything went well and our dog is happy. But the process of flying with our pet is absolutely horrible. First of all, our only option was to let the dog fly in cargo. Extremely expensive (5000 USD). It’s also stressful for our dog to be in the crate in a noisy environment during “check-in” at the cargo company, sending the dog through an industrial x-ray machine, didn’t seem safe at all! The dogs are really handled like any cargo package, getting picked up by forklifts and placed to wait for extended periods of time. The only alternative option for us would be to charter a private yet, then our dog can fly in the cabin. But the price is prohibitive.
The flight was from Hong Kong, the cargo company is Jardine Airport Services, operating for IAG Cargo which handles pet cargo for British Airways.
Like I mentioned, everything went fine, but this isn’t how it should be. We should be able to fly with our pets in the cabin. Our dog is our family member!
I wish there were more options for people travelling with pets. I don't support people abusing the system, as it hurts people who genuinely need adjustments, but when the alternative is putting them in cargo, I can understand why you'd do it.
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[ 1660 ms ] story [ 1754 ms ] threadHow many other people should be inconvenienced by my issues?
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.
The whole thing is a big grey area. The rules should be explicit.
The court system. I say something is reasonable, you do not and don't allow me on a flight so I take you to court over it and the court decides.
It might be a common sense thing to say that no one would ever want or have need to use a horse as a service animal, but there are miniature horses that are service animals.
Also IIRC miniature horses being service animals is explicitly part of the law, so I'm not sure why you're using that as an example.
How would that even work, too? If a random person decides that somebody's disability doesn't exist, do they then just barge in even more than usual. "I decided that your coeliac disease didn't exist, so I used wheat as a thickener. Your fault for not explaining it better."
Pig https://www.cnn.com/2014/11/30/travel/emotional-support-pig-...
Kangaroo https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mcdonalds-kangaroo-beaver-dam...
A. Your examples are of animals disallowed - not allowed.
B. Those animals are obviously much more feasible, physically.
C. Regardless of how feasible they are, I simply gave a reasonable answer to the question - I didn't imply that all human systems have that same answer.
You should explain your thoughts, instead of only posting links with no context.
So no, the airlines don't have to accept someone's service animal that isn't a dog.
Another interesting thing is that I have a friend who builds apartments in a college town for students. The apartments for years had a strict no pet policy, however people started claiming they were emotional support animals and that the apartment had to let them keep them. So now the apartments just charge you a several hundred dollar fee each semester. If you can't beat em, join em.
Sometimes someone's life comes unraveled because their disability has never been properly identified and accommodated. Being able to say "I need this" without having to jump through hoops to prove it can help such people make their lives work better.
Most studies suggest that something like one in five people has a disability. One study that asked about user needs and challenges in using stuff intentionally avoided using stigmatizing words like "disabled" or "handicapped" and more like three fifths of respondents said they had some degree of trouble doing various things and more accessible design would benefit them.
People who are only moderately disabled often try like hell to avoid getting labeled as disabled because it is stigmatizing and people start treating you like you are stupid and worthless rather than like you just need special accommodation in some areas to make your life work. Those who qualify for an official label of "disabled" are equally hostile to seeing only moderately disabled people being granted the label that grants special status and special accommodation.
The reality is that disability occurs along a continuum. It isn't an on/off switch where if you fall on this side of the line you are "normal, healthy and able-bodied" and if you fall on that side of the line you are "disabled." We try to categorize it like it works that way but it doesn't really work that way.
> "Each time an employee has an encounter with a fake service dog (and yes, they know when you're lying), this brings us tangibly closer to the implementation of laws, regulations, and policies that make it harder for me to live my life without being treated as a second-class citizen."
As a video: https://www.kronon.tv/videos/people-behaving-badly-2013-farm...
I have had a college class on Homelessness and Public Policy. I homeschooled my two gifted-learning disabled sons for years, which means I effectively ran a two student school under the laws of California for years. I also spent some years homeless in part due to my own disability.
Before I was diagnosed with a serious disability in my thirties, I was routinely dismissed by people around me as merely "lazy" (while being sick all the time and one of the top students of my graduating high school class).
Lots of people who claim their animal is a "service animal" are people whose lives are in the toilet, the system doesn't work for them and they have serious issues. Inability to prove need is not actually evidence of lying.
I have a dog phobia and don't like being around them. I am all for finding some means to make sure people keep their animals under control in public. I have had lots of negative experiences with assholes who will not control their dog and who feel I am obligated to meet their dog's emotional needs and all this kind of crappy thing.
Plenty of people being dismissed as "merely abusing the system" have a real need and "abusing the system" is their only means to try to meet it in a world that is routinely hostile to their needs.
It's really complicated. Trying to sort out a better policy is not simple at all.
Anything you or I write here is effectively the same thing. ;) Equal valuation. This blog does cite the ADA and IAADP though.
You seem focused on the bureaucratic hoops and seem to think I want them enforced more strictly? I haven't mentioned that. Please evaluate only the words I use. You seem to be making a point about specifics I haven't raised.
The people acting unethically/immorally and abusing the system know who they are when they do it. It's why they are so defensive. Selfish people ruining good things, once again.
It's really not as simple as "you can tell who is abusing the system at first glance." That's not how that works. I know many people like to think the world is nice and straight forward like that, but it usually isn't.
The thing you quoted did say that, which is what I'm responding to:
> "Each time an employee has an encounter with a fake service dog (and yes, they know when you're lying),
Have a great day.
The thing that bothered me more than anything about this is that you aren't allowed to ask for any type of verification, so people can just walk in with them anywhere. Never made sense to me.
At least to park in a handicap space you need a hang tag or a special license plate. Why not something simple like a special collar tag or card in your wallet?
Service animals have to be licensed, trained to perform a task or duty, and be easily identifiable. Misrepresenting an untrained and unlicensed animal as a service animal is fraud and illegal.
I do think it would be better off for everyone if there was a license though. I've known people with legitimate service dogs who have had that opinion even. They wish they had a document to prove their legitimacy, as they are constantly asked for a document that doesn't exist.
The correct solution is for businesses to grow a backbone and do that for all animals all the time until people gaming the system with fake ESAs give up.
In the US this is not true by the ADA as licensing is a pretty prohibitive cost for many people with disabilities.
I personally don't see the argument that a separate license is needed or helpful. It's an extra cost and step that's entirely unnecessary. If you want or need a service animal you obviously have to have some way to train it and care for it, but a license is extra. Also if it is ever lost or anything you could be turned away from any public place until it's resolved. I just see it causing more issues for people than it tends to solve.
Service dogs(or rarely horses) can generally go anywhere the owner can go including areas pets are prohibited. There is no formal verification, but the owner of the property or their employee can ask if this is a service dog that is required because of a disability, and what tasks it is trained to perform. If it is a cat or other animal, or not trained to perform a task, just to provide support it is not a service dog and they can be refused entry and trespassed.
Registration of service dogs would disenfranchise the disabled. About twice as many don't have photo ID as the general public, many do not own a car or have access to reliable transportation, even relatively small costs can be prohibitive
I expect not waving this is what the rules change actually is, because I don't think the DoT can just decide the ACAA is not a thing.
For a service animal, the airline can only require
> identification cards, other written documentation, presence of harnesses, tags, or the credible verbal assurances of a qualified individual with a disability using the animal.
Although it should be noted that only 23 states prohibit misrepresentation of a service animal, the main difference being that service animals are rather obviously limited as they can only be dogs or miniature horses (an other thing which makes me doubt the complete veracity of the article).
Landlords can't charge a pet or animal fee for emotional support animals.
Yes, this is done to avoid the risk of running afoul the ADA and ACAA. Sadly this has gotten more and more abused in recent years.
The key difference between an "emotional support animal" and a legitimate service animal is that service animals have training that directly assists with the person's disability. Easy examples are seeing-eye dogs, dogs that are trained to smell/detect low blood sugar in diabetics, and dogs that are trained to protect their owner if they have a seizure or similar.
Emotional support animals are just...emotional support and aren't trained to really do anything.
It seems like businesses were just too scared to go to battle over people bringing their pets places for fear of being accused of violating the ADA.
To be clear, I think emotional support animals are ridiculous, but the "no registration/license" piece is a very critical part of the ADA. Finally, businesses are allowed to ask what tasks a service animal has been trained to do as verification and that allowance doesn't even extend to service animals in training.
I think a solution is for the government to place restrictions on emotional support animal use, eg the same way prescriptions are handled.
https://journalistsresource.org/studies/society/culture/emot...
I'm a bit touchy on it because I've seen it become a real issue for people with service animals.
This is an extra burden for having a disability which is specifically what the ADA tries to prevent. It allows anyone to train effectively any animal to perform any task that helps them with any disability they (or someone else) may have. It's ultimately these tasks and abilities that make an animal a service animal, not a registration or tag that needs to be kept up to date and costs money.
To be clear I'm talking about any registration that certifies an animal is a service animal, to my knowledge all service animals still have to have all other forms of legal registrations and tags.
It's really about the spirit of the ADA which tries to make sure that there are as few barriers as possible for people with disabilities in society. Someone else made a comment that describes how low the rates are for people with disabilities to have normal forms of ID for themselves, let alone their animals. For someone with a disability even the smallest of barriers can sometimes be insurmountable.
For example, California landolords must allow ESAs and can not require pet deposits for them
https://usserviceanimals.org/blog/emotional-support-animal-l...
ESA are an accepted therapeutic aid for mental issues. In fact airlines require medical evidence under 14 C.F.R. § 382.117(e).
I also mentioned in another comment below that my general interaction with ESAs is people using it as a loophole to take their pets places and causing issues for people with service animals. You're right that there are certainly good cases for it and I'm sure plenty of responsible people with ESAs that aren't part of that group.
Yes. As you say those are service animals, meaning they are trained to actively help e.g. a service animal could be trained to detect acute distress and actively insert themselves into the situation. An ESA is just support.
> I also mentioned in another comment below that my general interaction with ESAs is people using it as a loophole to take their pets places and causing issues for people with service animals.
I completely agree that this is a huge issue. Although people will also misrepresent service animals as most states have no sanctions about that (it's rarer because there are usually expectations about service animals, and the available "range" is extremely limited e.g. a cat or a cockatoo can not be a service animal).
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.
Now the new thing is to get out of paying exorbitantly high ($500) pet fees by claiming the pet as a support animal. Competent building managers will see this coming and note that only service dogs are exempt.
In both cases -- pet or children -- damages should be extracted from a security deposit. j
On the other hand landlords compete for tenants. So they may want to allow pets but impose a surcharge for the potential damage.
You'd have the same issues with tenants that were excessively noisy, or held parties and spilled alcohol in the hallways, or scratched doors/walls/floors from moving bikes, furniture, etc. So it seems inconsistent to apply the nonrefundable fee only to the case of pets.
https://www.wndu.com/content/news/Dowagiac-house-fire-sparke...
https://www.myarklamiss.com/louisiana-news/child-playing-wit...
https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jun/23/child-linked-...
https://www.fox13now.com/2015/07/25/fire-crews-respond-to-2-...
https://www.ajc.com/news/local/kids-playing-with-lighters-ca...
Pets don’t make the news when they ruin dwelling places, as it is relatively common compared to that.
The reality is that animals are rougher on homes than humans are. Even things like the backyard will have more wear and tear on it with a pet than with humans and all of this has to be dealt with during turn over.
A perfect example of this is paint. During a normal turnover we would do a "tier 3" paint job. Which is to hire someone to come in with a spray gun and spray the walls white. They don't target baseboards or ceilings, but the overspray will generally cover some of it (ever notice how apartments and rentals generally have white walls, white baseboards, and white ceilings?). It is a cheap and lazy paint job that we have negotiated flat rates for $300-$400 per home. This happens no matter what.
But on a home with a pet occupant, it is nearly guaranteed that you would need to perform at least a tier 2 paint job which is generally coupled with a carpet replacement. The carpets are torn up (or peeled back if they are recoverable), the painters come in and spray the walls, baseboards, with overspray on the underlayment (under the carpet) and the ceiling edges. This usually runs us $800 - $900. So pet rent usually goes to that.
After a tier 2 paint job, a carpet contractor usually comes and re-stretches the carpet and does a carpet shampoo. But on a home with a pet occupant this has to be replaced since hair and dirt that most people don't notice, can cause allergies for the next tenant. So with a pet occupant our turnover cost goes from a standard $200 for re-stretching, as much as $1,200 for fresh carpet. Pet fees go to that.
A final turnover item is the backyard. Normally a lawn care company comes to do a standard touch up on the yard. This includes mowing, trimming, leaf blowing, etc, just to make the home presentable for walk-through. But with a pet, the grass is usually thinner after the pet use, and needs some re-seeding. Sometimes it is destroyed with holes or previous renter patches. Fences often need fixing (which gets really expensive, even if it is just a few boards) and so on. A standard lawn turnover usually costs $50. But with a pet it usually is $100+ and I have seen extreme cases where it is in the thousands.
This all comes from someone who owns a big dog that I love. My dog is well behaved. He never has accidents in the house and for the most part doesn't cause noticeable damage. But there are minor things that you just don't notice that I have only seen now that I have experienced it through property management.
Pets really do cause more wear and tear on homes than human-only occupied homes. That is why there are pet fees. They know that more is going to be done when you move out and those fees contribute to limiting that.
Now many renters have learned that if they claim that a pet is an emotional support animal, that they can avoid pet rent. But the reality is that if you claim a pet as an emotional support animal, that you can basically kiss your deposit goodbye. The company that I worked for was pretty good about giving back deposits. There was a $400 non-refundable deposit that we collected upon move in that you never got back. THis covers standard turnover stuff like tier 3 painting and carpet re-stretching. So if you leave the house in good condition, then we can give you everything other than that $400 back, and usually did. If you have a pet, then the extra rent from pet rent is calculated to cover the upgrades to tier 2 paint jobs and carpet replacement jobs. So again, you get your deposit back unless something is beyond normal wear.
But if you avoid pet rent with the emotional support animal, then that is fine. They won't charge you pet rent, but you will certaintly not get any of your deposit back. The owner or property manager still has to do the carpet replacement, yard fixes, and extra painting regardless of whether you pay pet rent o...
Hotels discount rooms all the time for guests they know have a very low likelihood of causing damage. The probability of a person with a pet causing damage must be sufficiently high that it makes sense to charge extra. There's plenty of competing landlords and hotel businesses, and if there was economic opportunity in doing it the way you said, it would be done.
It's not just pets though. Hotels will charge more for wedding parties, who are far likelier to cause noise complaints, damage etc, than a crew of workers who will be sleeping, going to work, rinse repeat.
Oh, I realize why landlords prefer it. I just don't think it holds up under scrutiny. If you're my tenant and I charge you $100/month for dog rent on your new puppy, who causes $0 damage and lives for 14 years, I've extracted $16,800 from you, $0 of which will go toward rehabbing the apartment of dog damages when you leave.
Additionally, a landlord will want to work on the space more often than once every 14 years. A security deposit does not cover this.
Additionally a tenant renting for 14 years is making a suboptimal financial decision regardless of pet ownership. Much more than $15k would be unnecessarily spent, for many people. A tenant who wants to get the better end financially, especially a pet owner, will buy or at least keep the landlord honest about market costs of the rental.
Then again, I had a therapist who vouched for this and actually do have mental health problems that my Shepherd without a doubt helps me with.
No way in hell I am putting the dogs in the cargo hold. The passengers around us and flight attendents were absolutely enamored with how well they behaved.
While I tend to agree that this has been abused - it frustrates me that obnoxious children get a pass.
Setting aside the absurd cases, like emotional support peacocks, I think a lot of the emotional support animal shenanigans are simply people not wanting to cargo their pet and not having the time to drive them across the country.
But in general, yes, I'd be willing to pay for their own seat or row, just like when traveling with him by train we need to buy a special dog ticket.
Looks like they're out of business now after a quick Google, but maybe it'll give you some hints where to look for clues - there has to be more of these companies out there doing this kind of thing, as I was led to believe was popular/common (?) for pro sports players to want their pet with them at training camps & such (hearsay by me). As mentioned, it was not cheap but I was also paying for a kennel at the destination for a few days until I could get there myself.
I'm also surprised the players didn't just get to bring the pets on the charter plane they travel around the country on, if only for that initial move.
That’s what we did when we flew to Germany with our dog last year. Too many stories about pets dying in cargo. Our small dog just sat on my lap the whole time and a lot of people and children stopped by to pet the dog and give treats. I think it made the flight better for all. But we knew that she wouldn’t make trouble and wouldn’t have taken her if we had had the slightest doubt. I guess some other pet owners go on board with problematic animals.
No pet owner thinks their pet is problematic...
https://www.cunard.com/en-us/inspiration/life-on-board/pets-...
Planes are enclosed-air spaces, and the allergens from your dog make anyone with allergies miserable for the entire duration of the flight. Every single time we end up on a plane with a dog (even the "hypoallergenic" ones), my wife ends up sick. Not to mention the fact that there are plenty of people with severe phobias of dogs, and that the animals themselves tend to be extremely uncomfortable on flights. That last factor has actually led to a number of innocent people sitting next to folks with dogs getting bit, etc on planes.
Actual service animals do still belong, because they provide an actual service, are extremely well-trained, and are worth the allergen/phobia tradeoff because folks who need them literally need them.
And to your point about pet sitters or boarding. My family did not choose to get another pet at some point while I was growing up because the cost of boarding while traveling was just too much.
I wish pet culture would be dialed back a few notches on the dial.
And for the situation where you’ll be away for a long time? It’s cheaper to take a pet aboard a plane than to board for a few weeks. But there should be better options than either (1) the cargo bay or (2) in the cabin with everyone else.
> Actual service animals do still belong, because they provide an actual service, are extremely well-trained, and are worth the allergen/phobia tradeoff because folks who need them literally need them.
Emotional support animals absolutely are a thing. The problem is everyone abuses the idea. But for someone with depression, just having your dog or cat next to you can keep you sane better than your medicine can. I know, because that someone is me. Do I take my pet everyone? No, but they absolutely do help when needed.
Again, if that's your life, don't own pets. We had a dog, and having to deal with her when we would go on vacations or even just needing to stay late at work knowing she had been inside and would need to go out was a constant hassle. She was a sweet dog and loved but I'm not ever having another one.
As far as traveling on a plane, I don't see any other practical options, I could imagine something like a kennel area in the passenger compartment but cannot imagine any airline actually providing that unless they could consistently fill it for fees that make up for the loss of the passenger seats, which seems unlikely.
Pets are a choice.
I'm being hyperbolic, but still the "pets (or kids) are a choice" argument falls apart after a moment's scrutiny.
(Note: putting kids and pets in the same category seems a bit bold.)
I'll also mention that it's the contact side of it too. If I touch anyone's dog, I have to wash my hands, because one absentminded rub of my face is all it takes to go full allergy misery. Sitting on any furniture that a dog has been on for a length of time (say, your couch)? Also going to cause me problems.
Pets shed, airplanes have carpeted floors and airplanes aren't exactly deep cleaned between flights, at least in non-COVID times.
If your dog was in that seat or on the floor of that row on the last flight, and I'm in it on this flight, I'm likely going to be both personally miserable and making everyone else around me miserable for my entire flight.
Just to reinforce the truthfullness of this. Most planes only get cursory garbage removal between flights. Thats it! They are only cleaned every 24 - 48 hours. But a plane might make 4-12 flights between cleanings, and even these cleanings aren't serious. They do a vacuum and spray sanitizer on main surfaces, but that's it.
In fact one of the reasons that diseases spread so much on planes is not because of people on your flight or the re-circulated air as most people assume. But often disease spreads from people that sat where you are sitting on a flight 1-3 flights ago.
And of course allergenic have similar characteristics to viruses and bacteria. So they follow the same pattern.
Have you ever been on a flight where someone with peanut allergies is on the plane? The flight attendants announce that someone on the plane is allergic, so peanuts will not be served on the plane as a matter of safety.
The same courtesy should exist for people with allergies to pets. Many of them have to spend the whole flight concerned that they might have a reaction because they are forced to share the same re-circulated air as a pet that is potentially dangerous to them.
The DOT ruling cites an industry statistic that 784k pets and 751k ESAs were transported in 2017 [1]. I can certainly believe that it's grown more lopsided since then, but it still seems that a significant number of flights would have animals on them after this rule takes effect.
https://www.transportation.gov/sites/dot.gov/files/2020-12/S...
Ridiculous right? The way I understand the argument so far is:
Pets should be allowed on planes and everyone else must deal with that.
Pets should not be allowed so pet owners must deal with that.
Neither option sounds reasonable to me.
Really it looks to me like there is a market for safe and reliable pet air transport. Why have carriers not addressed this?
As long as all flights are forced to accept service animals without verification for free, it's not a viable business to have flights exclusively for pets.
In fact, some animals are not allowed to be kept as pets at all. I'm fine with extending that to all types of animals. Dogs are out there spreading covid right now but I can't go to the gym. That makes so much sense.
I don't understand the pet owners' sense of entitlement.
Where is this data? [1] says "Currently, there is no evidence that animals play a significant role in the spread of SARS-CoV-2 to people"
[1] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/...
> I don't understand the pet owners' sense of entitlement.
I don't know if this is directed at me? I don't have a pet. I'm just advocating for pet owners here.
And if you can't understand how shortsighted your view of "anything that inconveniences me is bad" then nothing I can write will change your mind.
I didn't say these words, nor imply them. I find it befuddling how you act as if non-owners of pets are the selfish ones. Let's replace "dogs" with "cigarettes". After all, smokers like nicotine as much or more than dog owners like dogs. Am I also selfish if I don't wish to endure sitting next to a smoker on a flight?
Lots of things inconvenience me but are inescapable or benefit society at large. Dogs are neither of these things, and the burden of owning them should not be externalized to those who derive no benefit from them.
I looked into this a while back and articles were making the mortality seem more likely than it was.
https://mashable.com/2016/01/11/turkey-therapy-pet-airplane/
And the airlines would do nothing because they couldn't be seen as the bad guy (or it's just unfashionable to have rules that need to be respected these days).
Lots (multiple for most big industries)
> What does it take to form one?
"Hello, competitors in my industry. We think we can build a larger moat by lobbying for regulation that will make it harder for other competitors. Would any of you like to join us in having less competition?"
> What kind of influence do they carry?
C.F. Cartels
https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying
The even have their own trade association:
https://www.taforum.org/creating-a-new-trade-association/
Setting one up is easy; you just incorporate. Influence ranges from "zero" to "able to get meetings with Congresspeople on important committees". The meetings are the important part. You can't actually bribe your way to power, but you get to tell them what you want and how that benefits their constituents.
That's easy for an airline, which employs a lot of people and impacts travel for everybody. They use a group to speak with one voice and (perhaps more importantly) know who to talk to (which isn't just elected representatives but also the decision making people at in the executive branch).
TBF miniature horses can genuinely be not just ESA but service animals. They're the only legal alternative to dogs for service animals.
It ain't over until it has been to court. The hurdle for the new agency rule is to demonstrate that this is not a violation of civil rights under the American's with Disabilities Act. For the past thirty years (almost) that's tended to be a high bar. How high? Well emotional support animals were flying because the airline industry didn't want to test it in court.
The agency rule gives the airlines additional cover. But an agency rule doesn't usually trump federal statute and the ADA doesn't explicitly delegate interpretation to ordinary federal agencies. Just the DoJ and the DoJ can be challenged in the Federal courts.
It might be over, but I wouldn't go all in betting on it. YMMV.
https://www.ada.gov/service_animals_2010.htm
The FAA is acting under the assumption that this act gives them the ability to regulate differently than the ADA. However many of the changes made in this ruling are actually making the regulations more aligned with DOJ's ADA regulations.
So if a court were to rule that the FAA needs to follow the ADA rules completely the main change would be eliminating the new optional (airlines choice) form requirement for service animals.
Emotional support animals have zero protection under the ADA. They are only recognized under the Fair Housing Act (and is mostly an artifact of caselaw there) and under the FAA regulations being revised here.
Unless/until courts rule that emotional support animals must be allowed as reasonable accomidations in public places under the ADA (rather than just under the Fair Housing Act) I expect this exclusion of ESAs will be allowed to stand.
https://www.ada.gov/service_animals_2010.htm
>When it is not obvious what service an animal provides, only limited inquiries are allowed. Staff may ask two questions: (1) is the dog a service animal required because of a disability, and (2) what work or task has the dog been trained to perform. Staff cannot ask about the person’s disability, require medical documentation, require a special identification card or training documentation for the dog, or ask that the dog demonstrate its ability to perform the work or task.
How is that even supposed to work? “Hey, can you have a seizure so we can see your dog do its job?”
Airlines are allowed to require specific documentation.
https://www.transportation.gov/individuals/aviation-consumer...
>Airlines can request specific documentation and/or 48-hours advance notice for emotional support animals and psychiatric service animals.
Also, I assume that Dept of Transportation website is now out of date with the newest rule changes requiring only service dogs.
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 / Mental Health Professional Form
- Veterinary Health Form, or vaccination record with current rabies vaccination information
- Confirmation of Animal Behavior Form
Yes?
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.
Right now the problem for pet owners (of which I am one) is that there are no acceptable options, even at a significantly increased cost. Putting a pet in the luggage compartment is not acceptable, and airlines basically don't give you any other option unless your pet is small enough to fit in its carrier under your seat, which very few pets are. Airlines have options to support people traveling with infants and small children; similar options for people traveling with pets, even if they cost more, would be helpful.
Well, whats your suggestion then? If there was a better option, it feels like the airlines would have taken advantage of that opportunity. My guess is that the alternatives are too logistically/operationally expensive, and the pet owners aren't willing to bear that cost.
> Airlines have options to support people traveling with infants and small children
I see a lot of this sentiment in the comments, comparing infants and pets. One is essential to the continuation of our species. The other is a comfort, choice and privilege. It makes sense that our willingness to accept and subsidize is completely different between the two. You don't get a dependent tax deduction either, just because you have a dog.
A poster upthread said he would be quite willing to purchase a second seat for his pet if the airline would let him. So would I.
> I see a lot of this sentiment in the comments, comparing infants and pets. One is essential to the continuation of our species. The other is a comfort, choice and privilege.
Air travel is also a comfort, choice, and privilege. Suggesting that airlines could, for example, sell people a seat for their pet is not equating infants or children and pets. It's a business suggestion, that's all.
Not at all lol. What is the option though currently, renting a private jet?
edit: To think of it differently, the airlines have chosen, and that choice of theirs resulted in deaths of pets, repeatedly. They want to let pet owners pay for tickets but not give them the safety of traveling without killing their pet.
If they're going to allow pet travel it should have safety regulations just like people - that don't result in pets being left on a 130deg tarmac for literal hours, and dying.
The "free market" should not get to decide things that kill people, pets, etc.
It would have required a lot of resources to verify every individual claim and that would have raised prices for everyone. The burden of proof has been shifted to where it should always have been: on the person wanting to bring the animal.
The importance of the new rule is twofold: first, it lets the airlines know that it does not violate the ADA to restrict emotional support animals, and second, it permits airlines to require verification that an animal is actually required for support reasons, emotional or otherwise.
"Emotional support animals, comfort animals, and therapy dogs are not service animals under Title II and Title III of the ADA. [...] It does not matter if a person has a note from a doctor that states that the person has a disability and needs to have the animal for emotional support. A doctor’s letter does not turn an animal into a service animal."
This post is about emotional support animals, not service animals. Your animal, who's helping you feel better despite your phobia, is not a service animal. This is exactly because people keep blurring the line between these 2 different situations that airlines, restaurants and other businesses have to implement "a-hole policies".
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.
That is hardly the only alternative. There are other forms of travel and it is quite likely that your pet will be better off at home with a sitter or boarded while you're gone.
I'm in that category as well, but that by no means entitles me to abuse measures meant to help the genuinely disabled for my own convenience.
The decision wasn't for my personal convenience. It's much more convenient to throw an animal in the cargo hold. It really is not fun to deal with an animal with you on a crowded plane. Convenience is not the motivating factor at least for me... it's simply treating the animal humanely, which to me means avoiding throwing them in the cargo hold for long haul flights.
Also, I'm perplexed by people's use of the word "humane" when it comes to pets. If you want to treat them humanely (as you would other humans), open your front door and let them walk out to freedom. I've owned and will own pets again...but it's preposterous to compare the animal to the human.
This is quite reductive considering that most pets are animals that have been domesticated by humans for hundreds and thousands of years.
In many cases we've bred them towards certain tasks and behavioral patterns, in the process we also bred out of them traits they often would need to survive in nature.
When humans did that then humans took on a responsibility, you can't just handwave that away with "these are animals, they are unworthy of any consideration".
> I've owned and will own pets again...but it's preposterous to compare the animal to the human.
It's preposterous to claim humans are not animals to justify inhumane treatment of other living, and in many cases highly emphatic, beings.
And not to get me wrong here: I'm not some kind of hardcore vegan who thinks all animal products should be banned. I'm merely recognizing that as the dominant species on this planet we have certain obligations towards the rest of it's inhabitants and particularly those we've utilized to get us where we are today.
I'm pretty sure my drunken parents' methods of pet care were not in fact humane or in any way to the benefit of the pets who were killed by it.
No, it does not. This is how I view those who abuse this loophole. Find another way to travel that doesn't impact everyone else in the aluminum tube traveling 550mph.
They are operating a scam. This was the only way around it.
I could understand if airlines kept a blacklist for people who have animals out of control, but they don't even do that right now with their absurd overcharging. I could also understand putting down a refundable deposit and a $20-40 charge(though you can bring much heavier carry-ons for free).
The airlines' practices are indefensible. They are wildly overcharging and it is clearly a scam.
It is sad they are closing this loophole that allowed people to end run the scammers.
Eg:"Not all animals are 10lbs, not all animals fit under a chair, not all airlines charge $250, not all flights are the same distance, it's not just a carry-on (disingenuous) not all flights make money (so how can you claim it's a scam when they lose money)
Etcetera. It's just a tedious and lopsided way to argue.
> The current policy amounts to a price restriction which requires that airlines forgo a potential revenue source, as airlines are currently prohibited from charging a pet fee for transporting emotional support animals
> Removing the current requirement that carriers must transport emotional support animals free of charge will allow market forces (i.e., carriers as producers and passengers as consumers) to set the price for air transportation of emotional support animals as pets. This provision will allow carriers to charge passengers traveling with emotional support animals (dogs and other accepted species on board of an aircraft) with pet transportation fees. This represents a transfer of surplus from passengers to airlines, and does not have implications for the net benefits calculation of the final rule."
[1] https://www.transportation.gov/sites/dot.gov/files/2020-12/S...
I think it is reasonable to charge more for larger animals. If your dog takes up a seat then a ticket price is a fair price.
If you have a well behaved animal it is basically just a carry-on.
If some flights aren't profitable that doesn't justify price gouging people with animals that weigh nothing and use up no jet fuel. Increase ticket prices and baggage prices. That actually makes sense.
What was wrong with this alternative (other than being inconvenient for you)?
I'd be damned if I put him in a crate at the bottom of an airplane for 10-hours straight.
When I worked jobs as a janitor, and as a retail worker, I have at various times had clean up the shit, piss vomit, and any number of other bodily expulsions produced by 'emotional support' animals, invariably left untouched and without comment by their owners, or argued with people whose pets growl and bark at everyone if they aren't muzzled. I can't imagine being a flight attendant trying to manage that with a potentially belligerent owner for 10 hours on a plane.
No matter how well-behaved your animal is next time, if you aren't traveling over the ocean, please just drive, so you aren't putting the burden of your pet's presence of everyone else.
https://www.petvanlines.com/
I generally trust people with physical disabilities to "self-medicate". If someone with a wheelchair says that something will help them live like a normal person, I'm inclined to think they're telling the truth.
But an awful lot of mental health issues are ones where the people tend to make terrible choices when it comes to dealing with their mental health (not every disease, but an awful lot these days). A lot of these disabilities are sustained and enabled by poor coping strategies (e.g. avoiding things they don't like, acting in destructive ways, expecting and getting special treatment, etc).
What about the cases where allowing people to use their mental health as an excuse is making their mental health worse?
Much as we imagine we know what's best for them, ultimately they have a right to their free choice.
Our current healthcare system is a disgrace of paternalism and bureaucracy, amounting to a constructive denial of care. If anything many more drugs need to be made available directly over the counter - a consultation with the pharmacist should be enough.
I've arrived at these conclusions even with most of the costs being covered by Medicare (family member), good relationships with providers, intelligence/bandwidth to understand what they do, and now free telehealth visits. I can't even imagine the financial-bureaucratic world of pain for people on private "insurance" (or even worse, without) trying to get care for themselves while the system just milks them.
Actual service animals do still belong, because they provide an actual service, are extremely well-trained, and are worth the allergen/phobia tradeoff because folks who need them literally need them.
The amount of entitlement that pet owners have to impose the downsides of their pets on others boggles my mind sometimes.
If your opinion includes that proviso then then I can’t see how’s unpopular! It is quite reasonable overall.
For the DMV, you have a checklist and you walk up with everything on the checklist and the robot sends you off if you meet the checklist.
For stores, you have full facial-recognition and single-entry gateways. Violation is a full ban from the store. Digital signed payment only, no cash.
I mean, I get why it is, but for someone normative, not having to deal with people who (often for no fault of their own) have harder lives would be just so much better.
The USPS does this already and I can't see that it's anything but good.
Not to mention the comments that say something to the effect of "well even if it did help a few people, it drove up prices for everyone". The implication being that disabled people only deserve accommodations (and therefore the right to participate in society) when they are convenient for everyone/companies.
It's very telling that these are the responses of the community when it comes to disabled people rather than the responses we see on other threads about how some framework or Salas is dropping support for some beloved feature, i.e. responses such as "why can't we try X? Won't Y work?"
I'm physically ill reading the comments here.
The better question, I believe, is how often flights were disrupted by poorly trained animals. It certainly happened; how much? Then we can at least attempt to compare the benefits against the actual costs.
The impression I get is that a lot of people don't care about the costs. They simply care that there was a rule in place that people circumvented, and they resent that a lot.
If I was encountering a service animal every once in a while from a disabled person, it might be okay. But it feels like everyone other person has one, and I have no idea what the owner or trainer is like and that raises the risk profile quite a bit.
There's a very high likelihood that the same people that ignore leash laws are on flights with an animal in close quarters to me.
The problem is that there were no standards around this policy and it was abused without any clear indication that it helped anyone. There is also little clinical evidence that ESAs ameliorate patient symptoms, and much less that they help around travel.
Policies around ESAs, like anything, require effort to implement and support, and therefore need good evidential support ... instead of an emotional appeal.
In case you're wondering; no, she didn't write the release. The people scamming the system (drug seekers, etc...) realized pretty quickly not to go to her because she won't give them what they want.
If this trend continues (of loose animals in cabin) I bet we'll start having serious problems between pets and people inside an enclosed metal tube. Flying experience is already bad enough...
The support animal thing of "I just need this animal near me" without any regards to the temperament of the animal itself never made sense to me.