**Content Warning: Angry rant coming up.**
A year or so ago, I attended a meeting where a disabled veteran who now trains service dogs for vets was the keynote speaker. In addition to explaining to all of us in the audience how the training process works for these animals, his other main point was to remind people that when they lie about their pets, they are making life more difficult for those who genuinely need animal assistance to live their daily lives. I wanted to stand up and cheer! This has been a soapbox issue for me for a long time.
For over a decade, I helped to staff an annual outdoor festival that drew 10,000 visitors each day. One major takeaway about that experience for me is that people really need to stop lying about their darn pets! If you can’t visit an attraction or a festival for a few hours without lying to the staff (i.e. telling them your Paris Hilton purse dog is a service animal) then you don’t need something fuzzy to hold, you need integrity training.
This post relates to attractions and festivals in the United States, specifically. I don’t know what the rules on these animals are in other countries so I cannot comment.
The first thing to understand is that there is a HUGE difference between a service animal and an emotional support animal (ESA). Federal law has not quite caught up to the ESA trend yet, so it can still be quite difficult for people staffing attractions to know what they can allow and what they cannot. It can be harder still, to get any kind of legal backup when you run an attraction and know that visitors are being dishonest.
The Americans with Disabilities Act says that service animals are limited to dogs or miniature horses that are trained to perform specific acts. A true service animal is like a cane or a wheelchair. It is basically an extension of the person with the disability. The animal is also under control at all times. This comes from the high degree of training that they receive.
An emotional support animal (ESA) is not trained to perform specific tasks on behalf of the individual. They function more like a security blanket, bringing a sense of calm to the person. Sometimes their presence can keep the person calm enough that panic attacks are avoided altogether. ESAs can be helpful for those suffering from PTSD. However, an ESA is NOT automatically permitted to travel anywhere that a pet cannot. Maybe someday federal law will catch up, but for now, the protections for service animals and ESAs are not the same. If you tell attraction staff that your Paris Hilton purse dog is an emotional support dog, they are allowed to tell you to take a flying leap.
A big part of the problem with ESAs is that documentation can be purchased from some sketchy online retailers. This documentation says that your pet is suddenly an emotional service animal. No training required. A doctor’s documentation is supposed to be required too, but some of these sites operate on what they call “the honor system” for that piece of the puzzle. What a misnomer! Some people buy a certificate and/or a jacket for their pet, which makes it seem official. They believe this allows them to take their pet anywhere they want. This is not true.
ESAs are permitted, free of charge, on airplanes and in housing properties with proper documentation. As I mentioned above, the problem is the non-definition of “proper documentation” that currently exists. Federal laws need to catch up here. No matter what: attractions and festivals are not included in legal protections. Staff at attractions can turn you away. If they can see you are being dishonest, they should turn you away.
Side Note: A few months ago (pre-pandemic), I stayed at a Sheraton property and found a brochure of rules in the room. Their published Service Animal/Emotional Support Animal policy is pictured below.
TRUE STORY: Three years ago, I had a gentleman approach me at the front gate of the festival that I was staffing and ask if he could bring his large cat inside. The festival director and I had him show us the animal. It was the size of a medium-sized dog and had tall ears and yellow eyes. It was something called a Savannah. It turns out that it is a serval cat bred with a house cat and is not considered tame. He had a certificate that claimed it was an emotional support animal. However, he had to keep it in a stroller with a zipped net covering because when he took it out, the thing turned its yellow eyes on us, let out an angry mountain lion-style scream and ran off. Remember what I said about service animals being trained and under control at all times? Any attraction would have the right under those circumstances to deny entry.
Please respect the staff and other visitors of any attraction that you visit. Everyone deserves to have the same pleasant experience. When you take your untrained, illegitimate animal to an attraction, you run the risk of: 1) ruining the experience for others and 2) insulting those who have legitimate needs for assistance. Lastly, remember that staff who work at large attractions often work long hours for small paychecks and are required to smile all the time. . . no matter how they are treated. You are on vacation, they are not. They are at work. They don’t deserve to be treated like crap because you won’t leave your chihuahua, Fang, at home.
Thank you for listening to my soapbox speech. Attraction staff unite!!
OMG! Epilogue:
A mere four days after drafting this post, I found this crazy story on the Associated Press. This is a very similar cat to the one I wrote about above. Clearly, these animals are not meant to be in domestic situations. Fun (but unimportant) fact: The town in this article is only one hour away from my hometown in New Hampshire.
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