Service Animals, The Lies People Tell & the Harm It Causes.
One day you’re standing in a grocery aisle at a local supermarket when sudden rapid-fire barking jolts you away from the dozens of labels you were exhaustively reading through. Turning your head in the direction of the high-pitched disruption you discover a small fluffy pooch peeking out of a giant purse in the seat of a cart being pushed by a twenty-something too busy taking selfies to quiet her dog.
You glance down at your service dog and find him sitting patiently, waiting for you to move on, not paying the yappy interruption any mind. You know immediately that adorable little fur ball should not be in the store, and the girl mindlessly throwing items into her cart is one of the many reasons people judge you every time you and your dog enter a public space.
You could take the time to explain to her all the dozens of reasons she shouldn’t be bringing her dog into the store with her, and how her lies threaten your very quality of life, but you have been down this road before and know your efforts will only be met with indifference and blatant entitlement.
You couldn’t possibly stomach another person demanding their dog is an “emotional support” animal and has every right to be in the store with them, after all they feel better having their dog nearby. They are certain to loudly proclaim they have anxiety in public and petting their dog calms them.
You could try to explain that Emotional Support Animals (ESA) are not Service Animals and are not protected under the same ADA law that Service Animals are, but you already know from experience they won’t listen. They will instead insist they know more than you and if you can have your dog, they can have theirs, after all there is no difference, right?
Your dog continues to sit quietly, while theirs continues to boisterously yap. Soon you know they will pick up their dog and make some statement about how it just wants to play, and we should introduce our dogs right there in the aisle. Forcing you to explain for the umpteenth time that week why that is not a good idea and that your dog is working, a working dog doesn’t get to stop and play in a grocery aisle. Your words will certainly be met with how mean and unfair you are being, and how sorry they feel for your dog. *sigh
This and many other such scenarios have in fact transpired during the many outings I have accompanied my daughter, in her wheelchair, alongside her actual service dog. People see you and they want what you have, not realizing your disability is the ‘thing’ that allows you to have a ‘dog’ with you. They don’t see that your dog is specifically trained to assist you due to your disability, they don’t want to. They will comment on how well behaved your dog is, and not understand it’s because of their training. They will try to pet your dog and will get annoyed when you tell them they can’t, rolling their eyes the moment you claim your dog is working.
My daughter would gladly give her disabilities and her epilepsy to anyone who believes their life would be better if they could bring their puppy into the store too. The rise of ESA’s has muddied the water in an already murky pond. The ADA does not require proof that an animal is a Service Animal. It does not require anyone to offer up evidence of training or verification of ability, in fact it is illegal to ask for certification, license, documentation, or demonstration of the animals’ abilities[1].
While the ADA is clear on what constitutes a Service Animal, it also distinguishes between ‘service’ and ‘emotional support’, but the lines blur easily when someone enters a public space and insist the dog in their purse is ‘helping them’. The categorization of Service Animal, Emotional Support Animal (ESA) and Therapy dog tends to only thicken the gray areas and darken the public perception of what is real and what is not.
The ADA states, as an example, that if an animal is specifically trained to recognize that an anxiety attack is coming on and performs a specific task to assist the handler in avoiding the attack or lessening it in some way, however if the animals presence alone helps the person stay calm that animal is NOT a Service Animal[2]. A Therapy dog, while able to assist a multitude of humans during particularly stressful times are also not Service Animals as they are not trained to do a specific ‘job’ or ‘task’ for an individual person. This includes any animal regarded as ‘comfort animal’, ‘companion animal’ or one of the other subcategories people may use to describe their pet. [3]
The indicators between ‘real’ and ‘not real’ are rather simple and obvious. A Service Animal has been trained to behave specific ways in a public setting, often in ways a ‘pet’ or ESA has not. A Service Animal will not react to other animals nearby, such as barking at another dog, or cat or squirrel. A Service Animal will not attempt to get attention from others for themselves, they won’t be running freely ahead of their handler seeking pats and admiration from bystanders. A Service Animal stays very close to its charge, always on task and in working mode. In a restaurant you won’t find a Service Animal in the lap of its handler enjoying bites of their steak, it will be quietly under the table ignoring any and all fallen edibles. They will not sprint after a rabbit, nor yank their charge down the street in an excited attempt to play. A Service Animal is a ‘working’ animal, period.
So, what’s a business to do, how does one legally determine the validity of an animal whose owner is insisting on public access? You can’t legally ask for proof, proof is not required under the ADA, nor should it be. This is where the harm begins, its this growing belief that everyone is ‘entitled’ to their pet accompanying them. The expanding occurrence of animals in public wreaking havoc in restaurants, airports, supermarkets and aboard airplanes that will be the undoing of a law created to protect the actual Service Animals working everyday to ensure their handlers have safe, productive and inclusive lives.
Every time someone pretends their pet is a working animal, they are making it harder for those that truly use a Service Animal to continue to do so. For every pet that barks incessantly in a department store, or eats food from the table of a restaurant often in their owners lap, and hikes its leg on the tire of a grocery cart to relieve itself, the closer we come to the banning of Service Animals in all cases. These white lies may seem harmless to those weaving them, but to force a Service Animal handler to provide proof of training will certainly oppress the many disabled individuals the law is meant to serve and protect. Many of these people do not have the readily available resources to obtain or retain any type of legal certification requirement that is inevitably creeping upon the horizon.
Those who can not safely access public spaces without the assistance of their animal alerting them to oncoming seizures, or warn of a low blood sugar, or the steady gentle reminder they need to breathe while panic overwhelms them after a car backfires, will again find themselves segregated from society and no longer living a full life.
Be a kind human today, leave your ‘pet’ at home and keep your hands off the Service Animals. Honestly, their handlers would really appreciate it.
In loving memory of Obsidian “Obi” ~ January 31, 2008 — September 11, 2018
[1] https://www.ada.gov/regs2010/service_animal_qa.html
[2] https://www.nps.gov/deto/planyourvisit/upload/Service-Animal-Policy-DOJ.pdf
