{"id":1985,"date":"2015-12-01T10:19:13","date_gmt":"2015-12-01T00:19:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?p=1985"},"modified":"2015-12-08T10:35:38","modified_gmt":"2015-12-08T00:35:38","slug":"eagle-post-how-to-take-your-dog-just-about-anywhere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?p=1985","title":{"rendered":"Eagle Post: How To Take Your Dog Just About Anywhere"},"content":{"rendered":"<em>Tom Donnelly writes on veterinary matters in the USA.<\/em>\r\n\r\nIn June, a miniature Yorkshire terrier caused a fuss at a fancy Manhattan restaurant. From a Google review of Altesi Ristorante: \u201cLunch was ruined because Ivana Trump sat next to us with her dog which she even let climb to the table. I told her no dogs allowed but she lied that hers was a service dog.\u201d Internet discussions said the owner of Altesi, Paolo Alavian, defended Trump. \u201cShe walked into the restaurant and she showed the emotional-support card,\u201d he said. \u201cBasically, people with the card are allowed to bring their dogs into the restaurant. This is the law.\u201d\r\nSignor Alavian is mistaken: it\u2019s not the law.\r\n\r\nTo digress briefly, several years ago in this column, I wrote about the growing trend of people with mental illnesses relying on what are known as therapy, comfort or \u201cemotional support\u201d animals (ESAs) to stem the symptoms of their illness. In New York genuine individuals were challenging landlords in court over rules that did not allow pets in rental apartments. However, such situations set two rights in conflict \u2013 the renter\u2019s right to cope with a medical condition and the landlords\u2019 right to control and maintain their property. The New York trend has become a nation-wide trend as illustrated by a recent three-year legal battle in Washington state that involved the federal government, Scrappee Anne, a miniature schnauzer, and her owner Diana Alton a 65-year-old woman who has post-traumatic stress disorder, clinical depression and cannot work. Alton\u2019s landlords required her to pay a $1,000 pet deposit for her apartment. In November 2014 the landlords, Linda and Bert Barber, after incurring $175,000 in legal fees fighting Alton and the U.S. Department of House and Urban Development (HUD), which represented her, agreed to pay a $25,000 settlement to Alton and the government just to end it all. <!--more-->\r\n\r\nThe confusing patchwork of state and federal laws makes landlords and other businesses vulnerable to lawsuits if they impose restrictions on ESAs. Many people are also confused by the distinction between service animals and ESAs. Contrary to what many business managers think, having an ESA card merely means that one\u2019s pet is registered in a database of animals whose owners have paid anywhere from seventy to two hundred dollars to one of several organisations, none of which are recognised by the government. Coming back to Ivana, even with a card, it is against the law in New York City and a violation of the city\u2019s health code to take an animal into a restaurant. Nor does an ESA card entitle you to bring your pet into a hotel, store, taxi, train, or park.\r\n\r\nNo such restrictions apply to service dogs, which, like Secret Service agents are allowed to go anywhere. In contrast to an ESA, a service dog is trained to perform specific tasks, such as pulling a wheelchair and responding to seizures. The Internal Revenue Service classifies these dogs as a deductible medical expense. An ESA is defined by the government as an untrained companion of any species that provides solace to someone with a disability, such as anxiety or depression. The rights of anyone who has such an animal are laid out in two laws. The Fair Housing Act says that you and your ESA can live in housing that prohibits pets. The Air Carrier Access Act entitles you to fly with your ESA at no extra charge, although airlines typically require the animal to stay on your lap or under the seat\u2014this rules out emotional-support rhinoceroses. Both acts stipulate that you must have a corroborating letter from a health professional. Service animals have special training and are allowed in businesses and public buildings, though state law allows only service dog and small service horses in restaurants, bars and grocery stores. Service animals do not need identification or certification but do need to be harnessed, leashed or tethered unless that interferes with a person\u2019s individual disability or the animal\u2019s work.\r\n\r\nA business owner can ask whether the animal is a service animal and what disability-related task it serves, but they cannot ask a person about his or her specific disability. Fortunately for animal-lovers who wish to abuse the law, there is a lot of confusion about just who and what is allowed where. If you ask one too many questions, you\u2019re in legal trouble for violating the Americans with Disabilities Act and could face fines of up to a hundred thousand dollars. But, if you ask one too few questions, you\u2019re probably not in trouble, and at worst will be given a slap on the wrist.\u201d\r\nThere are no state or federal guidelines for prescribing comfort or emotional support animals, leaving doctors to make the determination. The benefits of therapy animals are well documented, and health professionals generally write a letter for their patient that states the client suffers from a mental disorder and would benefit from being allowed to have the therapy animal live with them. Some doctors even request that any special housing fees be waived if possible.\r\n\r\nThe lack of oversight has led to an online industry where people can purchase service animal vests and get their animal certified or registered as a comfort animal. Enter \u201cemotional-support animal\u201d into Google and take your pick among hundreds of willing professionals with whom to visit for a consultation. Through a site called ESA Registration of America, pet owners are put in touch with willing clinical social worker over the country who, at a cost of a hundred and forty dollars, will evaluate you over the phone to discuss the role of the comfort animal in your animal. If talking seems old-fashioned, you can consult thedogtor.net where getting an ESA certified is \u201conly a mouse-click away.\u201d You fill out a seventy-four-question medical exam online and receive your paperwork within two days, for just a hundred and ninety dollars.\r\n\r\nThe restaurant, airline and other industries worry that some people are abusing the system. No government agency keeps track of such figures, but in 2011 the National Service Animal Registry, a commercial enterprise that for sixty-five dollars sells certificates, vests, and badges for helper animals, signed up twenty-four hundred emotional-support animals. In 2013, it registered eleven thousand.\r\nPeter Singer, the Australian philosopher and author of \u201cAnimal Rights\u201d takes a dim view of the emotional-support-animal trend. \u201cAnimals can get as depressed as people do,\u201d he said, so \u201cthere is sometimes an issue about how well people with mental illnesses can look after their animals.\u201d And he continues \u201cIf it\u2019s really so difficult for you to be without your animal, maybe you don\u2019t need to go to that restaurant or to the Frick Museum.\u201d\r\n\r\nCorey Hudson, the CEO of Canine Companions for Independence, a nonprofit provider of trained assistance animals, has \u201cdeclared war on fake assistance dogs.\u201d Earlier this year, his organisation submitted a petition, which has now been signed by twenty-eight thousand people, to the Department of Justice, requesting that it consider setting up a registration\u2014\u201clike the Department of Motor Vehicles\u201d\u2014to test and certify assistance dogs and to regulate the sale of identification vests, badges, and so forth. \u201cThey responded that they think the law is adequate.\u201d","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tom Donnelly writes on veterinary matters in the USA. In June, a miniature Yorkshire terrier caused a fuss at a fancy Manhattan restaurant. From a Google review of Altesi Ristorante: \u201cLunch was ruined because Ivana Trump sat next to us with her dog which she even let climb to the table. I told her no [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82,296],"tags":[1665,99,665,861,85,1798,805,1666,91,179],"class_list":["post-1985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","category-post","tag-comfort-animals","tag-dogs","tag-eagle-post","tag-laws","tag-opinion-2","tag-post","tag-public","tag-therapy","tag-tom-donnelly","tag-usa"],"rise-blocks_total_comments":0,"rise-blocks_categories":[{"term_id":82,"name":"Opinion","slug":"opinion","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":83,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":94,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":82,"category_count":94,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Opinion","category_nicename":"opinion","category_parent":0},{"term_id":296,"name":"Post","slug":"post","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":297,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":39,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":296,"category_count":39,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Post","category_nicename":"post","category_parent":0}],"rise-blocks_excerpt":"Tom Donnelly writes on veterinary matters in the USA. In June, a miniature Yorkshire terrier caused a fuss at a fancy Manhattan restaurant. From a Google review of Altesi Ristorante: \u201cLunch was ruined because Ivana Trump sat next to us with her dog which she even let climb to the table. I told her no dogs allowed but she lied..","blog_post_layout_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":"","full":""},"categories_names":{"82":{"name":"Opinion","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?cat=82"},"296":{"name":"Post","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?cat=296"}},"tags_names":{"1665":{"name":"comfort animals","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=comfort-animals"},"99":{"name":"dogs","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=dogs"},"665":{"name":"Eagle Post","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=eagle-post"},"861":{"name":"laws","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=laws"},"85":{"name":"opinion","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=opinion-2"},"1798":{"name":"Post","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=post"},"805":{"name":"public","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=public"},"1666":{"name":"therapy","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=therapy"},"91":{"name":"Tom Donnelly","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=tom-donnelly"},"179":{"name":"USA","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=usa"}},"comments_number":"0","wpmagazine_modules_lite_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":"","cvmm-medium":"","cvmm-medium-plus":"","cvmm-portrait":"","cvmm-medium-square":"","cvmm-large":"","cvmm-small":"","full":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1985"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1985\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1994,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1985\/revisions\/1994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}