Service Animals, Emotional Support Animals, and Guide Dogs

Posted by Thomas Shaw on January 25th, 2019

Sadly, some people are asking irrespective of whether "service animal" laws are getting abused by those that would like to scam the system.

There have already been news stories, articles, opinion pieces and other editorials exactly where people rant and complain about people they believe to become abusing the system. You hear some complain that they had to sit close to a dog at a restaurant that they do not think is actually a "real" service dog, or other individuals complain that their neighbors have a pet within a "no pet" creating mainly because they claimed the animal is definitely an emotional support animal. Get far more details about emotional support pet

Several of the commentary has an indignant tone, and a few people are downright angry.

How does this influence people who legitimately personal and use a service animal to better their lives? In many methods.

For one, it might it much more difficult to navigate bureaucracy of your planet when your claim of a disability as well as your service or emotional support animal's status is questioned. If a landlord or business enterprise owner has heard unfavorable stories claiming that some people are abusing the system, it might cause them to appear suspiciously at all claimants.

Some landlord and company owners have begun asking for proof of status, despite the fact that asking for written or other proof is just not constantly legal, and even although several owners of genuine service animals and emotional support animals haven't taken advantage of registering them, and as a result have no such documentation to produce.

It truly is the suspicious attitude and illegal demands of some landlords and small business owners that make registrations services like the Service Animal Registry of California so essential to reputable owners.

Although registration is optional, it can assist shortcut the housing rental and company access issues when the owner can produce a basic document that can generally satisfy the owner or landlord. Also, when making use of public spaces, it really is frequently a lot easier to hand over a document having a simple sentence stating, "This is a service animal" and letting the other party study the details, as an alternative to obtaining a long-winded protracted conversation (or worse however, argument) in public, with onlookers listening in and gathering about the discussion.

So, do some people scam the system, or game the law? Sadly, the answer is "probably yes." In life, there's generally area for abuse and people can try and reap the benefits of numerous systems that we as a society put in place to guard the rights of people that will need such protection. For instance, several drivers falsely show disabled parking placards to reap the benefits of absolutely free and hassle-free parking. Not to mention the number of folks who lie on their tax returns, claim improper tax deductions, abuse retail shop return policies, or do other poor acts.

But that percentage of abuse, which in the region of service animal laws is hopefully little, is arguably an incredibly smaller value to pay when in comparison to the greater purpose of advertising access and equality for all.

Ultimately, you can't handle any system to make it 100% abuse proof. So tolerating the handful of people who scam service animal laws could be the price we gladly pay to ensure that the disabled in the great state of California have equal access beneath law.