Service Animals, Emotional Support Animals, and Guide Dogs1599949

Sadly, some people are asking whether "service animal" laws are increasingly being abused by people who want to scam the machine.

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 machine. You hear some complain that they to sit near your pet dog at a restaurant they don't believe can be a "real" service dog, varieties complain that their neighbors use a pet inside a "no pet" building since they claimed your pet is esa doctors.

Some of the commentary has an indignant tone, plus some people are downright angry.

How does this affect those who legitimately own and employ a service animal to better their lives? In several ways.

For one, it can it more challenging to navigate bureaucracy on the planet when your claim of the disability as well as your service or emotional support animal's status is questioned. If your landlord or business owner has heard negative stories claiming that many people are abusing the device, it can cause these to look suspiciously whatsoever claimants.

Some landlord and business owners have begun requesting proof of status, although asking for written or any other evidence might not be legal, and even though many people who just love legitimate service animals and emotional support animals never have taken advantage of registering them, and so have no such documentation to create.

It is the suspicious attitude and illegal demands of some landlords and business people that make registrations services just like 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 if the owner can certainly produce a simple document that will often fulfill the owner or landlord. Also, when working with public spaces, it is often easier to hand over a document having a simple sentence stating, "This can be a service animal" and letting the other party see the information, as opposed to having a long-winded protracted conversation (or worse, argument) in public, with onlookers listening in and gathering across the discussion.

So, do some people scam the machine, or game what the law states? Sadly, the answer is "probably yes." In life, there is always room for abuse and people can try to take advantage of many systems that we as a society set up to protect the rights of people 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 folks who 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 investment when compared to the higher purpose of promoting access and equality for all.

In the end, you can not 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 make sure that the disabled inside the great condition of California have equal access under law.