Service Animals, Emotional Support Animals, and Guide Dogs4913483

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

There have been news stories, articles, opinion pieces along with 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 a dog at a restaurant that they don't believe is really a "real" service dog, or others complain that their neighbors have a pet inside a "no pet" building since they claimed the pet is emotional support animal letter.

A number of the commentary comes with an indignant tone, and a few people are downright angry.

How does this affect those who legitimately own and use a service animal to raised their lives? In many ways.

For one, it may it more challenging to navigate bureaucracy on the planet when your claim of a disability as well as your service or emotional support animal's status is questioned. If your landlord or business proprietor has heard negative stories claiming that some individuals are abusing the system, it can cause these phones look suspiciously in any way claimants.

Some landlord and companies have begun asking for proof of status, even though asking for written or other evidence isn't necessarily legal, and although many people who just love legitimate service animals and emotional support animals never have taken advantage of registering them, and therefore have no such documentation to create.

It is the suspicious attitude and illegal demands of some landlords and business owners that make registrations services like the Service Animal Registry of California so fundamental to legitimate owners.

Although registration is optional, it can benefit shortcut the housing rental and business access issues if the owner can certainly produce a simple document that may often match the owner or landlord. Also, when using public spaces, it's easier to give over a document having a simple sentence stating, "This is really a service animal" and letting the other party see the information, rather than having a long-winded protracted conversation (or worse yet, argument) in public, with onlookers listening in and gathering round the discussion.

So, carry out some people scam the system, or game the law? Sadly, the answer then is "probably yes." In life, there is always room for abuse and individuals can try to take advantage of many systems that people as a society put in place to protect the rights of people who need such protection. For 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 the tax returns, claim improper tax deductions, abuse retail store return policies, or do other bad acts.

However that percentage of abuse, which in service animal laws is hopefully small, might just be a very small investment when compared to the higher purpose of promoting access and equality for those.

In the end, you cannot control any system to make it 100% abuse proof. So tolerating the not enough people who scam service animal laws will be the price we gladly pay to ensure that the disabled inside the great state of California have equal access under law.