There is also no registry for service animals, but there are companies that train those animals and they can be queried about training and legitimacy.
Next time someone says they have a service animal, ask them what service it performs. If they don’t have a ready response, they’re full of it. And if their animal isn’t well behaved, they’re also full of it.
My dog is a retired service animal. She performed seizure alert and response. She could (and probably still can) save a life. If she was on your flight you’d only know if you happened to see her. And frankly the other passengers would be more of a problem for her than she would be to anyone.
ESAs and liars create a lot of problems for legitimate service animals. I won’t point out any specific posts but there’s an incredible amount of ignorance in these threads and I’d bet it’s all due to negative experiences with people who don’t have service animals.
Service animals save lives. The people who need them really need them. Lying about a service animal is like lying about needing a wheelchair. Complaining about them is like complaining about a wheelchair blocking the aisle.
These animals are no joke. They’re extremely heavily trained. Many animals don’t make it through these programs. Some of them are worth more than your car.
And all because of an asshole who's too cheap to cough up 100$ for the proper transportation of his "support" animal.
It wouldn't be nearly as irritating that they charge for it if there were something they were actually providing (like a more pet-friendly place to ride), but they don't.
It's not. Dogs have to travel in their kennel under the seat, which is significantly more stressful for small dogs than on your lap, speaking as someone who travels with an actual ESA
You're missing the point of it being an emotional support animal-- the go-to response is usually something related to mental health that cannot be validated or disproven by the questioner.
It's disgusting and makes me uncomfortable whenever I'm at an establishment with them that usually doesn't allow pets.
Oh, you meant, stop being friends with scumbags.
They probably aren’t.
I've never seen any animal in an aircraft cabin, and I fly a fair bit. How does it work even when it is completely legitimate? Do you just ask the animal politely not to go to the toilet for 12 hours or however long? What if they have an accident? How on earth do you clean that up and deal the smell in a cramped space?
As for very long flights, I imagine that a service dog can do its business in a small bag or box. Also, a well trained animal will pee or poop on command before a flight and can go for quite a while without peeing or pooping.
It could make sense to require accredited training programs for service animals. Poorly behaved “service” animals are a problem for those who need real service animals.
0. Is this a dog or miniature horse? (only those animals are considered as potential service animals under ADA)
1. Is this a service dog within the definition of the ADA, i.e. has it been trained to perform a specific tasks to mitigate a disability? (cannot ask what the disability is)
2. What specific tasks is it trained to perform? (ex. seizure response, seeing eye, etc.)
However, there is no way for you to "check" if this is true. Service animals need not be trained by any approved company or carry any identification, and you cannot ask about this. The only way out is if someone admits to it not meeting the legal definition or gets caught in a lie while answering these questions.
If, after all that, the animal cannot be reasonably accommodated as it is not being housebroken, being vicious or harmful, damaging property, or making an unreasonable and excessive amount of noise, it can still get shown the door. Likewise, if allowing an animal is inappropriate under any circumstance for safety or regulatory reasons (ex. cleanroom, food service, nuclear exposure, hearing damage potential, etc), you need not allow it. The establishment owner is never responsible for feeding or looking after the dog or procuring one for the person with disabilities. You can expect that service animals be kept on lease unless brief exceptions are critical to job function.
https://nypost.com/2019/05/03/lawless-world-of-service-dogs-...
Even the federal government gets ripped off
>The legislation appeared to be a victory for service-dog advocates, but the study almost immediately encountered problems. The V.A. initially partnered with vendors whose poorly trained animals introduced unexpected complications. ... “We relied upon the organizations themselves, all of which professed to be very experienced and to be able to produce high-quality dogs, and unfortunately that did not turn out to be true,” Fallon told lawmakers in a 2016 congressional hearing. “We were not familiar enough with the service-dog community when we embarked on the pilot study. There’s no question that we’ve made mistakes
the ada explicitly doesn't allow any kind of request for documentation or certification either. basically you just have to take people at face value when you ask them if the animal is required because of a disability. and lots of people with ESAs are okay being very casual about that.
(and the reason i can figure out why people with ESAs are okay with bending the truth compared to a trained service animal, is because they tend to be the ones that are VERY upset in two situations that are legal: the one where i negotiate different accommodations because i'm very allergic to dog dander, and the one where they get upset that a misbehaving ESA is being asked to leave the premises. having been around dozens of trained service animals - i've never seen one misbehave the way ESAs can, and everyone is happy with my suggestions due to my allergy since i go above and beyond, rather than making things more difficult.)
https://www.ada.gov/regs2010/service_animal_qa.html
If someone does have some type of certification, I assume it’s they’re fraudulently claiming it’s a service animal.
Because they're afraid of lawsuits, or worse — being tarred and feathered on social media.
Yet another part of society that social media has made worse.
My dog never did his business on a flight (we never flew more than 6h and he was used to staying home way longer then that), but I had baggies ready to go.
I've done it with cats. They were required by the airline to have a health certificate from a vet stating that they were healthy enough to fly, to be kept in their container at all times, and I had to pay a fee. I think it was $200 last time.
The vet also supplies tranquilizers to give the animal just before the flight. That keeps it calm and helps prevent it from needing to use the litter box.
Coast-to-coast isn't a problem. 12 hours? Animals shouldn't fly intercontinental. There's simply no reason for it.
At one time you could mail a cat. I mailed one from Charleston to New York using Delta's package service. The fee was less because it went into the cargo hold, but it still needed documentation from the vet. I don't know if that's still allowed.
This kills pets all the time due to low temperature. Source: friend who used to work for the airlines.
As much of an annoyance as animals in the cabin are, the cargo hold is not conducive to supporting mammalian life.
People travel and move with their pets all the time. There are procedures for transporting them, including flying separately on cargo flights.
i can’t look at dogs on plane the same way after that. must have been terrifying for the dog, and disgusting for the people.
ps - i’ve seen a toddler with poop riding up his back on a plane, too. mom had her hands full with three kids! ive been an obsessed loving dog owner myself, but i don’t like how people try to compare dogs to babies and toddlers. i think it’s demeaning to the “small person”.
It wasn't an excessively long flight (~5 hours), but still, not sure how they could ensure the dog wouldn't need to go to the bathroom in that time.
I'm mildly allergic... it was not a pleasant flight for me at all.
You have the dog do its business beforehand. Same way most dogs are able to stay indoors while its owner(s) are at work for the day.
Same here. It's not life threatening. But depending on the dog it can mean real misery for an extended time.
I usually have medications in my travel kit. But until a pill works it takes an hour and it can be too late.
I wouldn't complain about service animals. But scumbags, who are just too cheap to pay for proper transportation of their pet severely piss me off.
Thankfully it's not such a big issue in Europe.
And no. The animal goes to the toilet as it normally would
Also some airports have animal relief areas on the airside.
I was seated next to a person with a small furry dog, who proceeded to tell me how hypoallergenic (marketing thing - no such thing) it was as I proceeded to sneeze and leek the entire flight :<
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/34708785/ns/travel-travel_tips/t/a...
Air isn't recycled in to this system because the cabin pressure is too low, but air already inside the cabin is circulated around to avoid it stagnating.
You're lucky if you get any snacks though these days.
Edit: Can confirm, no more peanuts on Southwest either: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/09/southwest-airlines-is-gettin...
Or the snacks are pointless. On a recent delta flight they handed out baby carrots from a bag.
I saw a dog with one of those fake "Emotional support animal" vests on take a dump in the frozen food aisle of the supermarket. When it was done, the owner just kept on walking.
People who use animals as fashion accessories and to draw attention to themselves should be punished.
Sadly, the Starbucks near me not only allows pets in, it has a corkboard where people are encouraged to post photos of their animals in the store.
I’ll rarely see a real service dog that’s actually trained and wearing a real vest. Most are fake ESAs (fake in the sense that there’s no real regulation or standard and it’s just to give the appearance of being official or service dog like so people are afraid to deny the pet).
I think this is unethical and makes it harder for people with real service dogs, but I find a lot of dog owners get angry when I’ve mentioned this and blame the airlines for making it hard to fly with pets.
It might not be that she was so bold as to admit her wrongdoing, but that she simply doesn't possess whatever it is that causes someone to actively analyze and predict the world around them.
I did it on Delta, Northwest (now also Delta), and United.
Which airlines are giving you problems?
1. It's too cold to transport the cat to cargo.
2. My flight gets rerouted, but in a way that's different from my cat's flight.
3. The health certificate must be the salmon copy, not the canary copy.
4. Here is the regulation that I found that says in the state I'm coming from, it's the canary copy that gets given to the airline. What do you mean I have to get a second health certificate from a vet in this state? I've flown multiple times and I've never had to go through this before.
5. Here is your goddamned salmon copy of the health certificate. What do you mean the letter of acclimation expired? Last week he could withstand temperatures of 35 degrees for brief periods of time, but all of a sudden this week he can't?
6. The letter of acclimation is missing, or incorrect, or I forgot it and the vet says she'll fax a new one to the office, but then half an hour later it still isn't there and I missed the flight cutoff.
7. A change in flights means the health certificate is no longer valid and I have to get another one.
8. Cargo is closed at that time. Their system shouldn't have even let me book that flight. Nobody is sure how this even possible.
Mostly it's just the first one, but this means sometimes I have to repeatedly cancel and rebook my flight which is expensive and annoying.
I also have completely had it with the large numbers of people I see at a nearby supermarket who walk their dogs, meet other dogs, treat the store as a dog park, and even let their dogs ride in the shopping carts with the food. It needs to stop. Have talked to the store manager who is sympathetic but says that all these people have certificates claiming the animal is a service animal and they are thus legally required to allow the animals in.
These days, traveling with an ESA is much harder. You need to actually submit a form signed by your doctor / psychologist / therapist to the airlines 48 hours prior to departure to register the animal on the flight.
It doesn't matter if you're on board with this tactic or not. What are you going to do? Tell the flight attendant? Will they believe you, or her? Do you think they will want to adjudicate a 'he said she said', when the consequences of adjudicating wrongly might be 'we harassed a person who has a legitimate service animal'? [1]
Are they going to throw the person in question off the plane, with a parachute? Ban them from flying with that airline? Sue them for tricking the airline?
Will taking any of these actions make the flight attendant's life easier?
The person who told you probably expected there to not be any consequences, even if you rat them out, and they are probably correct.
[1] The ADA loves these kinds of situations. I would be shocked if airlines didn't train their staff to uncritically accept claims that a dog is a service animal. The cost of accepting a dog on board are low. The cost of telling a person with a disability to go pound sand can be a six-figure lawsuit.
> Spirit Airlines Inc told regulators it lost “millions of dollars in pet carriage fees from passengers fraudulently claiming their ‘house pets are service or support animals.’”
They just want the pet fee to let an animal in a carrier replace the normal underseat luggage.
I'm not sure what the fee is for Spirit Airlines, but for United Airlines it is $125 each direction.
I have two issues with the fee.
1) It only covers one way. For a round trip itinerary you are looking at $250 - $400 for the pet fee. That can be more expensive than the actual ticket.
2) Your pet counts as your carry on item. I would be a little less bothered if the dog was allowed in addition to your carry on and personal items or if the airline included a free checked bag with the fee to offset the carry on. Since the dog counts as your carry on, you have to pay an additional $25+ each way to check a bag you might've otherwise carried on the plane.
I just remember being so blown away that she assumed a stranger would be 100% on board with this tactic as to tell me about it unvarnished that I was stunned into silence.
I love dogs, but you're ruining everything for the people who actually need service animals.