Therapy dogs: stop crafting loopholes to fair, reasonable laws
dirtamericana.com
dirtamericana.com
I was rather surprised about 12 years ago when we were looking to move in together, and someone told us, "oh, you can get around this building's no dogs policy with a doctor's note." That really bothered us.
We ended up moving to a place that was within walking distance of a great dog-friendly (on the patio) bar. I walked our dog there nearly every weekend!
There's now a restaurant in town (Massachusetts) that proudly claims their patio is dog friendly. I might take advantage of it when my puppy is a little calmer.
That's a federal rule around emotional support dogs I think?
Honestly I think landlords should just be banned for having those kinds of rules against common pets like some saner countries, so I don't have a problem with people getting around it. Landlords in the US have too much power over tenants.
That said, if it was a matter of a small number of buildings being allowed to designate themselves as no-pet/no-dog, I'd probably be okay with that. Things like this only tend to become a problem if you let anyone do it.
All in all, it's safe to say a moderate sized get-together, that doesn't violate the fire code occupancy limits nor make excess noise for the time of day, would be very difficult for a landlord to evict you over.
> The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is a federal agency that administers the Fair Housing Act (FHA). Under the FHA, a service animal is defined as an animal that is a necessary reasonable accommodation for a person with a disability. Emotional support animals and comfort animals ARE included in the HUD definition and are therefore allowed into a person's dwelling.
> There should be no "pet fee" for the service animal. The person with the disability must request the animal as a reasonable accommodation for the disability, and must be able to show that the animal is necessary because of the person's disability.
Basically it's using a more expansive definition of "service animal" than is typical, such that just about anyone could probably get their pets to qualify if they want.
I'm all for bending an inconvenient rule from time to time, but claiming a dog is an emotional support animal without having a disability is too far across the line, IMO.
It's a really low bar for a dog to qualify as an Emotional Support Animal. Which is great for people who need it, but is SO easy to abuse.
It only gives permission for someone to live with their dog though. It doesn't give someone any rights to bring their dog to restaurants and stuff though, even though people try. That's reserved for Service Animals.
What service does your service dog perform?
It alerts me to seizures or tells me when to take my diabetes medicine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-trust_and_low-trust_socie...
Not sure why this is on HN at all tbh
That last is always amusing to contrast with how hard of a line some people take on not doing shoes in the house, but then seemingly fine with pets.
A common point of comparison here is handicapped parking spots, since it's also a situation where the handicapped are granted a special privilege to mitigate the handicap, but obviously for parking spots there's a whole legal system for being allowed to park in those special spots. You can't just "self certify" that you can park in a handicapped spot, you have to get a placard from the government that you put on display on your car.
And now that it is common, there’s no political will to revisit this issue.
Unlike signing a letter stating that someone needs an emotional support animal, there are real consequences for a doctor authorizing too many. The DMV in many states does actually investigate handicap parking fraud.
In the states where chiropractors can authorize placards, they can and do lose their licenses for exaggerating or inventing conditions.
If you read up on it, it’s not as easy as you might think—especially if you want more than a temporary 6 month placard. There are scores of people complaining about how it took them a decade or longer to get one.
If you have an employee who has been previously sent to a hospital due to a customer’s service dog, you need to figure out a solution because you’re not allowed to ban the dog. And you’re not allowed to fire the employee because they have a medical condition.
https://www.ada.gov/resources/service-animals-2010-requireme...
There is far more to it than this. I did extensive research on service dogs and emotional support animals in 2015 when I was on staff of a convention.
I’m also very familiar with ADA due to my own disability. For example, off-hours support is not a considered an essential part of writing software, so you can’t enforce “you broke it, you support it” policies on people with work hour restrictions. Some people get really worked up about that.
So, if you have someone that would legit be sent to the hospital by having a dog in the room, then that reads like you can require that the dog not be in the room. I suppose it is notable that that is not a common severe allergy?
If you have cases law going over any of this, I'd be mildly curious to read some of it. I get the intent of the rules. And I'm comfortable with the general guideline being that you have to try to comply without bailing at the first chance.
My more recent research into ADA looked similar. Most of the time issues like this are solvable but the solution is inconvenient.
It’s also important to note that ADA does not apply to companies with less than 15 people. If you’re a small shop, you can hire someone else who isn’t allergic to dogs.
But it was also common to tie dogs up for long periods of time, which in most places will get you fined these days.
Since the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, any disabled person can sue a business and get statutory penalties for a lack of accomodation. Wrongfully denying a service dog can cost tens of thousands of dollars.
Europe doesn't have this mechanism. There's less abuse of accomodations as a result. But nothing is wheelchair accessible.
The RoboCop reference is clearly because of the phrasing:
> "No dogs on the walking path, thank you citizen"
???
Having a no dogs allowed rule on a walking path at a park feels so weird to me.
Dogs that spend a lot of time in dog parks are way more likely to behave badly when they see other dogs when they are out for a walk.
Tigers/lions/bears/chimps are generally not allowed either.
(That's for both sides, though there is a certain asymmetry in those cases. For example, my 4yo kid isn't going to kill an adult cyclist speeding down the narrow path in the park leading directly to the kindergarten, because they're in a hurry or it's some stupid "bicycle May" thing and they're scoring silly points, or something. The reverse however, is very much likely.)
Like what if a veteran struggling with PTSD has a therapy dog to help keep them emotionally regulated? Or is that a fake service animal by your defintion?
I agree that people abuse this system, but if you're publicly shaming people, how do you avoid false positives?
- Is the dog a service animal required because of a disability?
- What work or task has the dog been trained to perform?
Most of the time the second question will throw off the fake owners.
Is that actually a real thing? As in: I'm sure some people struggling with PTSD greatly benefit from their pets, but do they really need them at their sides 24/7 for "emotional support" and can't do some shopping without one?
I don't know if the client needs the service animal around 24/7, but if you have severe PTSD and could experience severe symptoms unexpectedly while shopping, it seems reasonable to bring along the support animal.
[0] https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/service-dogs-m...
So yes, in that context they’d be there 24/7, or near enough, but obviously that’s a different story from someone’s yorkie yapping at the DMV or whatever.
If a dog doesn't make loud noises, physically agitates others, or excessively spread diseases (slobbering all over the place), it seems fine to let them be in the same place. If someone has allergies, an agreement can usually be worked out to create distance, but if it can't we should favor the human.
So in a sense, I agree with you: They should have licenses that can be revoked based on their behavior. I don't really care if they're for service reasons or otherwise, I just care they're fit to be in public. Some dogs are, some aren't. Basically, we should be comfortable with fascistic enforcement around dog's behaviorally. That seems like a healthy middle-ground.
There are about 931283918982 more important issues than someone being offended at seeing a dog in close proximity at a place where you have an opinion that they shouldn't be.
As long as your pet doesn't come in contact with my food or defecate near it, you really should focus on more important things in life.
I notice that my initial comments are generally high quality but that I feel compelled to respond to everything and something about the increased volume, the thing I'm responding to not being directly something I picked from 30 different articles I read, and the inherent sub-current of challenge to my sometimes obstinate initial comments causes me to get defensive and snippy, and I need to work on that. A simple fix is to not respond to responses, but the edifying fix is to think about why I respond this way (inferiority complex when reading and commenting with generally higher than average internet users and/or not wanting to look stupid in front of the brainy computer people, possibly) to consider this as my bias, and to attempt to counteract it.
Thank you for your comment, sorry again.
We have limited time and limited number of problems we can address.
It's only natural to prioritize them and displays a higher level of critical thinking than pointing an argument you don't like and trying to pin some made up fallacy on it.
If you say that petty anti-social behavior is off limits because there are bigger problems, you are ceding the decisions about how society functions to people that make bad, anti-social choices.
1. No dogs in stores that have fresh produce, dairy and meat 2. No off leash dogs in public areas except in dedicated off leash areas 3. No dogs in restaurants indoors 4. Severe penalties if you parade your unbehaved dog as a service dog
But at the same time, dog haters keep pushing it to the point where you cannot have dogs beyond the confines of your home (the home cannot be an apartment building). People don’t want dogs in apartments and they don’t want them in ANY public areas. The same people will also oppose dedicated dog parks or ensure these parks are extremely small.
Around half the households in the country have a dog. There needs to be a middle ground.
And those with short fur that don’t shed a lot or are less allergenic and those with long fur that cover the whole space with their hairs.
My toddle has less rights to exist in a space outside their home compared to a dog capable of severely hurting them (and has many times in the past) specifically bred to be aggressive that does not let go after they bite.
This happened to my daughter in the first couple weeks of kindergarten. The class is supposed to line up outside in the morning before the teacher takes them into school, and some mom decided to bring their extremely large pitbull and park it 5 feet away from all the 5 year olds in line.
There was no chance this woman would have been able to control her dog, yet she had the right to keep a dangerous animal 5 feet away from my daughter. I told the school to take my daughter inside and keep her away or I was taking her home, and they had my daughter wait inside the office.
It makes no sense that any other large animal with similar characteristics as a large pitbull would have been disallowed, but because a pitbull falls under dog, it is allowed.
Pit bulls are no more dangerous than any other breed. They have a bad reputation because they are popular among dog-fighters, but pit bulls (and pit mixes) make excellent pets -- so long as they are trained. And they're easier to deal with than many working breeds, who quickly become dangerously anxious if you don't give them a job. (Pits, by contrast, are mostly couch potatoes.)
All of that said... most dogs do not belong in public, at least in the US. (Some other countries have a longer tradition of dogs in public, and they routinely train their dogs to behave well.) That is even more important in enclosed spaces, where neither you nor the dog can put distance between you if there is a problem.
The upshot: find a training class, and take it. The class isn't training your dog; it's training you. You have to take it seriously and do the homework. The dog is not a machine to be programmed by somebody else.
Level of damage is a component of danger. I am not worried about the damage an 8lb chihuahua will do to my kid, that can most likely be healed, and most people can stop the attack without weapons.
I am worried that the only way I can save my kid from a pit bull or similar dog is with a knife or gun, and even then, the damage will be severe.
> Pit bulls are no more dangerous than any other breed. They have a bad reputation because they are popular among dog-fighters, but pit bulls (and pit mixes) make excellent pets -- so long as they are trained.
The same can be said of tigers and hyenas and lions and chimps and bears.
When we spend 20,000 years breeding obedience into any of those, I'm sure they'll be fine in public, too.
I will just point toward horses, which are dangerous animals, significant more dangerous than any wild animals we allow near civilization, and which no human has any ability to fully control. They weight somewhere around a car, has high risk of going out of control if spooked, and there very little anyone can do once that amount of mass is moving.
Mounted police, cart and horse ride (often on busy tourist streets), or just places that has horse rides directed toward children. We would not treat other large and dangerous animals with similar characteristics to be used as we do with horses.
I wouldn't want my kid to be near the legs of a random horse either. If a reputable business is offering horse rides, then I have a little extra assurance of the horse's training or the handler's capabilities.
Them what we are talking about is training. Many dog owners will agree that training is important for the well being of the dog and essential if you want to have them around other people (and dogs). For owners that want to have dogs off the leash it is extremely risky without extensive training, unless they are puppies under certain age.
The more potentially dangerous an animal is, the more training should be required before they are allowed in spaces that risk other people. Given the number of deaths and serious injuries that animals do each year to humans, it seems fairly common sense to have such requirement that scale with how high the risk is given any specific animal.
Horse riding by children would be a bit more complicated. Not sure it is possible to reduce the risk to safe levels, but then that is the role of training and certification regulations.
Untrained pitbulls can be dangerous, but did the dog display any aggression at any point? Or is the whole story just “a well trained dog was in the vicinity of children, presumably not off leash, and I did not like that because I fear for my children all the time”? And are you actually allergic to dog fur or are you more concerned about the fictional person who may be allergic to dog fur, but only to the fur from larger dogs? Because the reality of dog allergies is that they are not really caused by the fur itself, regardless of the size.
Btw this is what I meant when I pointed that most discussions are emotional than rooted in reality.
No, I am saying that public places are not allowed to say a dog cannot exist there, so effectively my choice (and more often than not these days) is to take my kid and leave, or have my kid be in the same space as the dog. This includes playgrounds, restaurants, grocery stores, etc. Every dog is a service dog.
>Untrained pitbulls can be dangerous, but did the dog display any aggression at any point?
Why would I wait for it to display aggression? Just like any other animal that is capable of causing a lot of damage, I would be on alert, and preferably keep my kid away. There is obviously no possibility to react quickly enough to stop a large animal from hurting someone a few feet away.
>Or is the whole story just “a well trained dog was in the vicinity of children, presumably not off leash, and I did not like that because I fear for my children all the time”?
How is someone supposed to know it was well trained? Especially given the prior probabilities of the type of people who own large pitbulls in the first place. Just like you evaluate the type of people you're around (for example those with loaded weapons, brandishing knives, etc), why would it not make sense to evaluate the type of animal that is around?
>Btw this is what I meant when I pointed that most discussions are emotional than rooted in reality.
I don't see evaluating potential consequences as being emotional. You might ascribe a lower probability of injury, but I don't see it as consistent to give large dogs the benefit of the doubt just because they are dogs. Especially when all the stats indicate increased damaged from certain types.
Dogs are most definitely not allowed in playgrounds, restaurants (unless it’s for an outdoor seating) and grocery stores.
Everything else you described is mostly you expressing your discomfort around large dogs, stemming for your parental instincts to protect your child. Which is by definition an emotional response.
> Just like you evaluate the type of people you're around
Btw there are two types of evaluations. One is situational awareness and the other is stereotyping. Looking at a large dog that’s minding its own business but complaining about it because it’s a pitbull and COULD be dangerous, fits the second type.
It's almost as if you don't realize that humans are even larger animals, also capable of causing a lot of damage.
The problem in the US is that there is no such thing. You can ask “whether the animal is required due to a disability?” and “what tasks has the animal been trained to assist with?” The trouble with this is that you can construct any animal to pass those tests with some creativity. For example, trying to bring the family dog to an AirBnB: 1) “yes” 2) “The dog alerts me by barking when someone comes to the door” (i.e. most dogs). Access Granted. The second answer is reasonable for hard-of-hearing individuals, but you cannot actually ask if the person is hard of hearing, so you simply have to accept that the dog is a service dog.
Society wants a licensure system, but for some reason we’re not being provided with one in the US.
There’s zero consequence for lying about it, and potential to save $50 or $100 or just being able to enjoy taking your dog wherever you want.
For me it's about
(1) being law abiding and therefore a sucker to all those who get away with more than they're supposed to
(2) being afraid of selective enforcement - for example if it's traffic violation and it's enforced on me then my "points" go up which means my car insurance goes up. It's already at $4k a year with no points. One additional point is average ~$4680. So i don't want break at and fume at those who do but don't get caught.
So yea, seeing people take dogs where they are not supposed to, run red lights (bikes or cars), make right turns on red on "no right turn on red" places, make illegal left turns, speeding, walking un "bikes only lanes", etc all piss me off.
I go to local farmer's markets. There are signs everywhere, "No Pets". No one is obeying this law. Literally no one. WTF do they have the signs? All non-enforcement does is bread contempt for laws in general. Either enforce it or remove the signs.
Same with other laws. In other words, if the law was changed, these things suddenly wouldn't bug me. I recognise this as strange but I also feel laws and their enforcement is how we as a society enforce cooperation living together. Non enforcement = people taking advantage = worse society.
Is that a law, or just a rule from the farmer's market?
I think this is just health code where the law is forcing them to put up these signs but nobody actually cares if there's dogs there, it's not really needed to ban dogs there, and the only people who want to enforce that rule are people who really like rules.
Which literally seems to describe socalgal2.
Maybe we should just ignore all signs? "No Tresspassing", "Employees Only", "No Parking", "No Stopping", "No Dumping", "No Fishing", "STOP", "Do Not Enter", "One Way"
There's a park that closes at dusk. I walk my dog through it in the early morning hours unless I happen to see police hanging around. What's the alternative? The local residents clearly don't want people partying or sleeping in the park at night due to the crime that would invite in nearby areas. No one cares if I walk my dog through it. I doubt I'd be successful if I tried to effect change. What new wording would I even propose?
> Whataboutism or whataboutery (as in "but what about X?")[1] is a pejorative for the strategy of responding to an accusation with a counter-accusation instead of a defense against the original accusation.
I'm not accused of anything or deflecting with a counter-accusation. I don't have a dog nor have I ever claimed an animal is a therapy animal.
I actually think the post could be a bad-faith bait article which is itself an attempt to be a distraction.
2. The fallacious form of "what about ..." is trying to dismiss problem X without addressing it by raising problem Y. I identified the article's concern as being part of a larger erosion of rule-based good-faith behavior, which I agree should be addressed. But I think the more effective way is from the top down. I'm _not_ saying that people should bring their dogs into restaurants until the government is no longer corrupt. I _am_ saying that this is the most pedantic, narrow way to go about improving anything (and possibly virtue signalling about disabilities without input from those people, and from policing other people's behavior in a way that comes off as self-righteous without achieving anything.)
3. Merely pointing at people and labeling them as what-abouting is itself a fallacious way of avoiding confronting that person's argument. Again returning to that wikipedia article:
> Christian Christensen, Professor of Journalism in Stockholm, argues that the accusation of whataboutism is itself a form of the tu quoque fallacy, as it dismisses criticisms of one's own behavior to focus instead on the actions of another, thus creating a double standard. Those who use whataboutism are not necessarily engaging in an empty or cynical deflection of responsibility: whataboutism can be a useful tool to expose contradictions, double standards, and hypocrisy.
> Abe Greenwald pointed out that even the first accusation leading to the counteraccusation is an arbitrary setting, which can be just as one-sided and biased, or even more one-sided than the counter-question "what about?" Thus, whataboutism could also be enlightening and put the first accusation in perspective.
I.e. while I maintain that I am literally not using it in this instance, I nevertheless I find the impulse to loudly label something "whataboutism!" as a way to avoid engaging with a critique to also be a lazy fallacy.
In regards to dogs in coffee shops, etc. Aslong as there are enough spaces that allow dogs, it shouldn’t be a problem when most other places don’t allow them. I think there are enough people that enjoy dogs to make that work.
With guide dogs the benefit is huge - someone can get around without human assistance.
With "emotional support" animals it just means someone gets to take their pet with them to have coffee. Not a big enough benefit to outweigh the downsides.
If a person is unable to get a coffee without an assistance dog, and the dog is properly trained, why would you want to rob them of participating in a normal life?
Something being "just" for you, does not mean this holds for everyone.
You can totally have a legitimate service dog for invisible disabilities.
Licenses don't mean anything in the US btw. The law does not require it and having a "license" is meaningless. Sometimes a training organization might vouch for the dogs skills, but that isn't a license and doesn't legally mean anything.
I have a miniature golden doodle that I try to take to as many places as possible. But if there is a place that is strict, I end up just having to crate her.
You would guess wrong. The couple you met just didn’t bother to spend 5min reading the ADA service dog website.
https://www.ada.gov/resources/service-animals-faqs/
> Q5. Does the ADA require service animals to be professionally trained?
>A. No. People with disabilities have the right to train the dog themselves and are not required to use a professional service dog training program.
> Q8. Do service animals have to wear a vest or patch or special harness identifying them as service animals?
>A. No. The ADA does not require service animals to wear a vest, ID tag, or specific harness.
All you have to do is say your dog is a service dog, and it is, legally.
https://www.ada.gov/resources/service-animals-faqs/
Q5. Does the ADA require service animals to be professionally trained?
>A. No. People with disabilities have the right to train the dog themselves and are not required to use a professional service dog training program.
My son attended a forest school for three years, located in the middle of a protected nature preserve. The preserve has clear signage posted throughout stating that dogs are not allowed on the trails.
Despite that, there were many mornings when I’d be walking back to my car after drop-off and would see someone heading toward the trails with a dog. I always made a point to politely let them know about the rule and that a staff member would likely ask them to leave once spotted.
This happened at least 70 times over the three years my son was enrolled. Out of all those instances, only one person actually turned around and left with their dog.
The issue became so frequent that preserve staff had to involve law enforcement and began issuing trespass notices. While I only personally witnessed this once, the director told me it became a regular occurrence.
The one time I did see it unfold was honestly kind of entertaining. I gave my usual friendly heads-up to a couple with a small dog. The woman scoffed and said something like, “It’s just a small dog,” and continue into the forest. I went back to my car to send some work emails and Slack messages — and a few minutes later, watched as she was led out of the preserve in handcuffs. Apparently, she gave the same attitude to the responding officer.
Just as some people are enraged by folks violating "no dogs" signs, there are people enraged by folks not following traffic regulations (including the speed limit).
Just as someone may think it's weird that someone goes on a very, very angry rant about people driving 63 mph on a 60 mph zone, lots of people find it weird when people go on a rant about dogs.
This is exacerbated by the fact that one of these is much deadlier than the other.
So when you go on a rant about dogs, just keep in mind a lot of people are viewing you in a way people view those who complain about people going above the speed limit (regardless of the lane you're in).
Anti-disclaimer: I hate dogs. Would never date someone who had one because I don't want to be around one, and also because I wouldn't want to deprive someone of one.
I love dogs. I’ve had one by my side since the day I came home from the hospital as a newborn. These days, I often bring my dog with me to the office. But I’ve never once taken my dog somewhere dogs weren’t allowed. Respecting posted rules doesn’t mean you love dogs any less.
An equivalence I didn't make. Whether someone hates or likes dogs has no bearing on my point.