Absurd Story Of The Week
I remember hearing this story this past Thursday on Dennis Prager's show, and was reminded of it when listening to his replays over the weekend. This comes from the New York Times:
Hat-Tip: Ann Althouse. (She had a link to the article in question; Mr. Prager failed to give its title to locate it on the Times' site.)
The increasing appearance of pets whose owners say they are needed for emotional support in restaurants — as well as on airplanes, in offices and even in health spas — goes back, according to those who train such animals, to a 2003 ruling by the Department of Transportation. It clarified policies regarding disabled passengers on airplanes, stating for the first time that animals used to aid people with emotional ailments like depression or anxiety should be given the same access and privileges as animals helping people with physical disabilities like blindness or deafness.
The following year appellate courts in New York State for the first time accepted tenants' arguments in two cases that emotional support was a viable reason to keep a pet despite a building's no-pets policy. Word of the cases and of the Transportation Department's ruling spread, aided by television and the Internet. Now airlines are grappling with how to accommodate 200-pound dogs in the passenger cabin and even emotional-support goats. And businesses like restaurants not directly addressed in the airline or housing decisions face a newly empowered group of customers seeking admittance with their animals.
WHILE most people who train animals that help the disabled — known as service animals — are happy that deserving people are aided, some are also concerned that pet owners who might simply prefer to brunch with their Labradoodle are abusing the guidelines.
"The D.O.T. guidance document was an outrageous decision," said Joan Froling, chairwoman of the International Association of Assistance Dog Partners, a nonprofit organization representing people who depend on service dogs. "Instead of clarifying the difference between emotional support animals who provide comfort by their mere presence and animals trained to perform specific services for the disabled, they decided that support animals were service animals."
No one interviewed for this article admitted to taking advantage of the guidelines, but there is evidence that it happens. Cynthia Dodge, the founder and owner of Tutor Service Dogs in Greenfield, Mass., said she has seen people's lives transformed by emotional-support animals. She has also "run into a couple of people with small dogs that claim they are emotional support animals but they are not," she said. "I've had teenagers approach me wanting to get their dogs certified. This isn't cute and is a total insult to the disabled community. They are ruining it for people who need it."
The 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act states that anyone depending on an animal to function should be allowed full access to all private businesses that serve the public, like restaurants, stores and theaters. The law specifies that such animals must be trained specifically to assist their owner. True service animals are trained in tasks like finding a spouse when a person is in distress, or preventing people from rolling onto their stomachs during seizures. ...
... But now, because the 2003 Department of Transportation document does not include language about training, pet owners can claim that even untrained puppies are "service animals," Ms. Froling said. "People think, 'If the D.O.T. says I can take my animal on a plane, I can take it anywhere,' " she said.
Aphrodite Clamar-Cohen, who teaches psychology at John Jay College in Manhattan and sees a psychotherapist, said her dog, a pit bull mix, helps fend off dark moods that began after her husband died eight years ago. She learned about psychological support pets from the Delta Society, a nonprofit group that aims to bring people and animals together, and got her dog, Alexander, last year. "When I travel I tell hotels up front that 'Alexander Dog Cohen' is coming and he is my emotional-needs dog," she said. She acknowledged that the dog is not trained as a service animal.
"He is necessary for my mental health," she said. "I would find myself at loose ends without him."
(No offense, but it sounds like she has already leapt beyond the realm of 'loose ends.')
It is widely accepted that animals can provide emotional benefits to people. "There is a lot of evidence that animals are major antidepressants," said Carole Fudin, a clinical social worker who specializes in the bond between animals and humans. "They give security and are wonderful emotional grease to help people with incapacitating fears like agoraphobia."
Groups of pet owners with specially trained "therapy dogs" have long visited hospitals and volunteered after disasters. Following the 9/11 attack in New York, 100 therapy dogs were enlisted to comfort victims' families at a special center.
But Dr. Fudin said that emotional reliance on an animal can be taken too far. "If a person can't entertain the idea of going out without an animal, that would suggest an extreme anxiety level," she said, "and he or she should probably be on medication, in psychotherapy or both." ...
(And that is the only wise and smart thing said in this whole article.)
... One 30-year-old woman, a resident of Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y., said she does not see a psychotherapist but suffers from anxiety and abandonment issues and learned about emotional-needs dogs from a television show. She ordered a dog vest over the Internet with the words "service dog in training" for one of the several dogs she lives with, even though none are trained as service animals.
"Having my dogs with me makes me feel less hostile," said the woman, who refused to give her name.
(Anyone consider this for "Howling Mad" Howie Dean and the rest of the unhinged Left? Does the DailyKos man need a hug, er, lick from "man's best friend?" Will that help them through the next two years of President Bush's last term?)
"I can fine people or have them put in jail if they don't let me in a restaurant with my dogs, because they are violating my rights," she insisted. ...
I am so glad that this woman is not a Constitutional lawyer because she does not know what she is talking about. It is clear by that response, that sort of attitude, that she is abusing the "right" that people with real special needs animals have. Furthermore, a caller wanted to know that, since we are considered--scientifically--as "animals," does that mean I can demand that Thomas flies with me if I go somewhere because I "need him for emotional support?" Can we demand that our spouses or members of our family fly for free? In addition, notice that they make the point that even "special-needs goats" are covered under this.
If this is the case, where do you draw the line. I am emotionally attached to a hippo; can I take it on the plane? How about a penguin. (Thomas loves penguins.) Here is another question: What if I am allergic to certain animals that may be on the plane, or in the restaurant? Better question: What if I am afraid of dogs; does my emotional stress trump theirs?
This is the type of argument that can only end in both sides beating their heads against a wall, or a gunshot.
What makes me weep for the court system is that this story is real. This is not a work of James Lileks' brilliance. If that were the case, I would be laughing, and not crying.
The Bunny ;)
I remember hearing this story this past Thursday on Dennis Prager's show, and was reminded of it when listening to his replays over the weekend. This comes from the New York Times:
Hat-Tip: Ann Althouse. (She had a link to the article in question; Mr. Prager failed to give its title to locate it on the Times' site.)
The increasing appearance of pets whose owners say they are needed for emotional support in restaurants — as well as on airplanes, in offices and even in health spas — goes back, according to those who train such animals, to a 2003 ruling by the Department of Transportation. It clarified policies regarding disabled passengers on airplanes, stating for the first time that animals used to aid people with emotional ailments like depression or anxiety should be given the same access and privileges as animals helping people with physical disabilities like blindness or deafness.
The following year appellate courts in New York State for the first time accepted tenants' arguments in two cases that emotional support was a viable reason to keep a pet despite a building's no-pets policy. Word of the cases and of the Transportation Department's ruling spread, aided by television and the Internet. Now airlines are grappling with how to accommodate 200-pound dogs in the passenger cabin and even emotional-support goats. And businesses like restaurants not directly addressed in the airline or housing decisions face a newly empowered group of customers seeking admittance with their animals.
WHILE most people who train animals that help the disabled — known as service animals — are happy that deserving people are aided, some are also concerned that pet owners who might simply prefer to brunch with their Labradoodle are abusing the guidelines.
"The D.O.T. guidance document was an outrageous decision," said Joan Froling, chairwoman of the International Association of Assistance Dog Partners, a nonprofit organization representing people who depend on service dogs. "Instead of clarifying the difference between emotional support animals who provide comfort by their mere presence and animals trained to perform specific services for the disabled, they decided that support animals were service animals."
No one interviewed for this article admitted to taking advantage of the guidelines, but there is evidence that it happens. Cynthia Dodge, the founder and owner of Tutor Service Dogs in Greenfield, Mass., said she has seen people's lives transformed by emotional-support animals. She has also "run into a couple of people with small dogs that claim they are emotional support animals but they are not," she said. "I've had teenagers approach me wanting to get their dogs certified. This isn't cute and is a total insult to the disabled community. They are ruining it for people who need it."
The 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act states that anyone depending on an animal to function should be allowed full access to all private businesses that serve the public, like restaurants, stores and theaters. The law specifies that such animals must be trained specifically to assist their owner. True service animals are trained in tasks like finding a spouse when a person is in distress, or preventing people from rolling onto their stomachs during seizures. ...
... But now, because the 2003 Department of Transportation document does not include language about training, pet owners can claim that even untrained puppies are "service animals," Ms. Froling said. "People think, 'If the D.O.T. says I can take my animal on a plane, I can take it anywhere,' " she said.
Aphrodite Clamar-Cohen, who teaches psychology at John Jay College in Manhattan and sees a psychotherapist, said her dog, a pit bull mix, helps fend off dark moods that began after her husband died eight years ago. She learned about psychological support pets from the Delta Society, a nonprofit group that aims to bring people and animals together, and got her dog, Alexander, last year. "When I travel I tell hotels up front that 'Alexander Dog Cohen' is coming and he is my emotional-needs dog," she said. She acknowledged that the dog is not trained as a service animal.
"He is necessary for my mental health," she said. "I would find myself at loose ends without him."
(No offense, but it sounds like she has already leapt beyond the realm of 'loose ends.')
It is widely accepted that animals can provide emotional benefits to people. "There is a lot of evidence that animals are major antidepressants," said Carole Fudin, a clinical social worker who specializes in the bond between animals and humans. "They give security and are wonderful emotional grease to help people with incapacitating fears like agoraphobia."
Groups of pet owners with specially trained "therapy dogs" have long visited hospitals and volunteered after disasters. Following the 9/11 attack in New York, 100 therapy dogs were enlisted to comfort victims' families at a special center.
But Dr. Fudin said that emotional reliance on an animal can be taken too far. "If a person can't entertain the idea of going out without an animal, that would suggest an extreme anxiety level," she said, "and he or she should probably be on medication, in psychotherapy or both." ...
(And that is the only wise and smart thing said in this whole article.)
... One 30-year-old woman, a resident of Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y., said she does not see a psychotherapist but suffers from anxiety and abandonment issues and learned about emotional-needs dogs from a television show. She ordered a dog vest over the Internet with the words "service dog in training" for one of the several dogs she lives with, even though none are trained as service animals.
"Having my dogs with me makes me feel less hostile," said the woman, who refused to give her name.
(Anyone consider this for "Howling Mad" Howie Dean and the rest of the unhinged Left? Does the DailyKos man need a hug, er, lick from "man's best friend?" Will that help them through the next two years of President Bush's last term?)
"I can fine people or have them put in jail if they don't let me in a restaurant with my dogs, because they are violating my rights," she insisted. ...
I am so glad that this woman is not a Constitutional lawyer because she does not know what she is talking about. It is clear by that response, that sort of attitude, that she is abusing the "right" that people with real special needs animals have. Furthermore, a caller wanted to know that, since we are considered--scientifically--as "animals," does that mean I can demand that Thomas flies with me if I go somewhere because I "need him for emotional support?" Can we demand that our spouses or members of our family fly for free? In addition, notice that they make the point that even "special-needs goats" are covered under this.
If this is the case, where do you draw the line. I am emotionally attached to a hippo; can I take it on the plane? How about a penguin. (Thomas loves penguins.) Here is another question: What if I am allergic to certain animals that may be on the plane, or in the restaurant? Better question: What if I am afraid of dogs; does my emotional stress trump theirs?
This is the type of argument that can only end in both sides beating their heads against a wall, or a gunshot.
What makes me weep for the court system is that this story is real. This is not a work of James Lileks' brilliance. If that were the case, I would be laughing, and not crying.
The Bunny ;)
posted by Syd And Vaughn | 7:56 PM
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