Service Animals, Emotional Support, and Guide Dogs1609744

Sadly, many people are asking whether "service animal" laws are now being abused by those who want to scam the system.

There have been news stories, articles, opinion pieces as well as other editorials where people rant and complain about people they think to be abusing the system. You hear some complain that they to sit near a dog at a restaurant they don't believe is a "real" service dog, forms of languages complain their neighbors use a pet in the "no pet" building since they claimed the animal is how to ask doctor for emotional support animal.

A few of the commentary posseses an indignant tone, and some people are downright angry.

So how exactly does this affect those that legitimately own and make use of a service animal to higher their lives? In lots of ways.

For one, it may it more challenging to navigate bureaucracy of the world when your claim of your disability along with your service or emotional support animal's status is questioned. In case a landlord or business owner has heard negative stories claiming that some individuals are abusing the machine, it can cause them to look suspiciously in any way claimants.

Some landlord and business owners have begun asking for proof of status, even though asking for written or another evidence might not be legal, and although many those who own legitimate service animals and emotional support animals have not taken advantage of registering them, and thus have no such documentation to produce.

It is the suspicious attitude and illegal demands of some landlords and companies that make registrations services such as the Service Animal Registry of California so vital to legitimate owners.

Although registration is optional, it can help shortcut the housing rental and business access issues once the owner can certainly produce a simple document that will often fulfill the owner or landlord. Also, when using public spaces, it is usually easier to give a document with a simple sentence stating, "This is a service animal" and letting one other party see the information, rather than having a long-winded protracted conversation (or even worse, argument) in public places, with onlookers listening in and gathering around the discussion.

So, do some people scam the device, or game the law? Sadly, the answer then is "probably yes." In life, there is always room for abuse and people can make an effort to take advantage of many systems that people as a society applied to protect the rights of those who need such protection. As an example, many drivers falsely display disabled parking placards to take advantage of free and convenient parking. As well as the number of people that lie on their own tax returns, claim improper tax deductions, abuse shop return policies, or do other bad acts.

But that percentage of abuse, which around service animal laws is hopefully small, could well be a very small price to pay when compared to the higher goal of promoting access and equality for all.

In the end, you can't control any system to make it 100% abuse proof. So tolerating the few individuals who scam service animal laws may be the price we gladly pay to ensure that the disabled inside the great state of California have equal access under law.