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Comment by coldpie | Hacker News Reader

I think it is a little of both :) Emotional support animals are a real thing, but they are expensive and require a lot of maintenance and there are limits on where they may be taken. Stuffed animals can make people feel better for similar reasons, it's a companion to "talk to" or a nice familiar sight, and they have a lot lower bar to ownership than real animals do. So a stuffed animal can be reasonably considered to be in the same category as a real emotional support animal, but they are obviously a lot less serious than a real animal. So it's fun and funny to choose an animal with a bit of silliness and humor to it, like a chicken.

It is a joke, yeah, but it can also be a mood booster. So it's both.

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Speaking of the benefits of someone to "talk to", programmers have long known the benefits of rubber duck debugging, in speaking aloud the problem (to an inanimate object) to help align their thinking.

Perhaps we all could benefit from some knitted Coding Support Chickens?

It's a meme, alright. It's simple and very funny, obvious enough that everyone "gets it" when they hear it. However, I don't believe anyone actually does that? I mean, why would you need a rubber duck to talk to, in particular one rocking back and forth to nod its head with agreement? Can't you just talk with yourself?

But that's exactly how it works! You talk to it and walk yourself through your problem to hopefully arrive at a solution.

If you can do it without a duck/rock/colleague/whatever, that's great! But for some, it is easier if they have someone to talk to.

There are also obviously some people that take advantage of the rules around emotional support animals. Like Great Danes on airplanes (second hand anecdote). So the effect is that people tend to suspect everyone is taking advantage. There are even a ton of services to make it super easy to classify a pet as an emotional support animal. So, I am all for these ridiculous chickens. Might buy some for my kids (I am not into knitting).

As far as I know, no major airlines have any special treatment for "emotional support animals." Most U.S. airlines allow pets on domestic flights to fly if they stay inside carriers within approved size limits. Emotional support animals and therapy animals fly as pets regardless of any certifications. So I'm pretty sure there's no service that makes it easy to fly with your Great Dane as an emotional support animal. You might be thinking of other animal-related exceptions, like having a pet in your apartment where the lease normally doesn't allow pets.

Service dogs on commercial flights are a separate USDOT category. The dog needs to be trained for a specific task for a disabled passenger, and the passenger must provide an attestation form. Airlines must allow service dogs, but they can still deny transport if the dog poses a safety risk or causes significant disruption before or after boarding. I'm not sure how enforcement works in practice, but I certainly wouldn't try to fly with a dog using a false attestation.

My understanding that those services that classify your animal are all unnecessary and sort of a scam.

Clearly not a pet person.

I am a total fan of emotional support chickens, real or knitted. I am also a fan of rotisserie chickens.

Yup. A pretty clear giveaway that a service animal is fake is those vests with “SERVICE ANIMAL” in size 9000 font on the side.

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