Emotional support animals on plane

[Alloftheboys]

News article about an emotional support dog on a plane which bit a child.

1. Emotional support animals are not the same as service animals e.g. Guide dogs so may not be trained at all.
2. Child was told to stay away and then the dogs teeth grazed her forehead.

www.mirror.co.uk/news/us-news/womans-emotional-support-dog-bites-12143433

Should the dog have been allowed on the flight? There is nothing to say legally that it should have been.
Owner did tell girl to stay away but should the dog have been muzzled on the plane?

Maybe the child should have been better supervised? After all, if she can't stay away from a dog when she's been told then who knows what else she'd do...
Only muzzle the dog if you're prepared to restrain the child too. After all, the dog was behaving until provoked.

The dog is only an animal. Ridiculous to compare the 2 as though they were equal.

I agree the child should have stayed away when told but this dog doesn't have to have any training whatsoever.

If I wanted to slap a vest on a boa constrictor and say it was a "support snake" would you be happy with it on a plane next to you?

I wonder how many "emotional support" animals are just the owner preferring to keep the animal with them in flight.

Wouldn’t bother me at all to be on a plane with an emotional support dog as long as it’s well behaved. Maybe they ought to have some form of training/licence to be classed as a support dog? I would prefer to avoid badly behaved children on a plane though 😊

Yes, the dog should have been muzzled.

I don't understand how you can authorise animals on board practically. Who checks that no passenger has allergies?

Should the dog have been allowed on the flight?

It has to qualify to be an emotional support animal. You can’t just say this dog helps my anxiety.
So I think that question is stupid.

I'll just leave these here...

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01/31/emotional-support-peacock-turned-away-united-airlines-flight/

www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/08/spirit-airlines-emotional-support-hamster-flush-toilet-florida

To be honest if I saw a dog on a plane like this I would have assumed it was a trained support type service dog. I wouldn't have realised it was just a normal pet.

It should have been muzzled definitely.

Believe me if I could have put a muzzle on DS2 during his epic tantrum just I would have

There was also the incident of the woman flushing her support hamster

www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/woman-flushes-emotional-support-hamster-11992885

There were so many dogs in the casinos last time I was in Vegas it was unreal, had never seen any on the floor before.
An animal being identified as a support animal when not trained, is cruelty to my mind.

@TheC I asked that question as the information I found said there was no law to say provisions had to be made.

Under US law you have to be proved to have a disability and then something from a doctor to say an emotional support animal would help.
The airline doesn't have to allow the animal on the flight. It seems different airlines have different policies.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_support_animal

We priced for our dog to fly from Manchester to Malaga (in the special cargo hold) with British Airways. It came close to £1000, so I am not surprised at the increase in emotional support animals in the cabin.

So you can be "prescribed" any pet to be an emotional support animal then- as long as you find a private doctor that'll do it for the right money?

Seagull? Tarantula? Lion?

Fuck that shit. PC gorn mad. I feel sorry for any properly trained guide dog that gets lumped in with it.

To my knowledge an emotional support animal is untrained. It is not like a trained service/assistance animal. Therefore to my mind, they should not have access to any spaces a pet wouldn't also have access to as that is essentially what they are, a pet. In the US, emotional support animals can special dispensation in shops, transport and rental accommodation.
..
However I do think we need to expand the concept of support animals (or animals in general) to include properly trained assistance animals for mental health needs.

@SaucyJack
Boards plane
Hello everyone I'd like you to meet my seagull. He's called Steven
He's my emotional support animal as you can see by his little vest. He's here to keep me calm. I just ask that everyone covers up their in flight meals as he likes to swoop down and steal food.
He also likes to crap everywhere so you might want to wear a hood or hat.

I support a local group that trains emotional support dogs for veterans (they also train dogs for police and security roles) and have met many of them and seen them in action. It is very frustrating for the group that there are so many untrained animals being called 'emotional support animals'. There really needs to be some kind of official process for registering trained animals.

Meet my support crocodile. I suppose that's one way to get any seat you want.
It does seem odd though that there's not more rules and regulations surrounding the animals, like there would be for highly trained service animals. However the child had been told more than once to leave the dog alone so child (or indeed the parent) also at fault and I say this as the Mum of a headstrong just turned 3 year old and a 7 year old with some additional needs

Steven Seagull?

Bravo. Love your work.

Hello everyone I'd like you to meet my seagull. He's called Steven
No guesses who's been watching The Shallows......

It’s well known in the US as a pisstake by people who don’t want to put their precious pets in the hold.

I'm both allergic to and terrified of dogs. I'd be almighty pissed off to be stuck in a confined space filled with recirculated air with a creature that makes me struggle to breathe.

And I'd be equally fucked off over being forced to endure something which terrifies me for however many hours in order to appease someone else.

DH got bitten by a seagull. In its defence, he was trying stroke it. Twat.