Service Animals, Emotional Support Animals, and Guide Dogs6744492

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

There have been news stories, articles, opinion pieces as well as other editorials where people rant and complain about people they feel 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 a "real" service dog, or others complain that their neighbors have a pet in a "no pet" building since they claimed your pet is emotional support animal letter.

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

How does this affect those who legitimately own and make use of a service animal to higher their lives? In several ways.

For one, it can it harder to navigate bureaucracy of the world when your claim of the disability as well as your service or emotional support animal's status is questioned. If your landlord or company owner has heard negative stories claiming that some individuals are abusing the device, it can cause them to look suspiciously at all claimants.

Some landlord and business people have begun asking for proof of status, despite the fact that asking for written or other evidence is not always legal, although many owners of legitimate service animals and emotional support animals never have taken advantage of registering them, and thus have no such documentation to make.

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

Although registration is optional, it can help shortcut the housing rental and business access issues when the owner can create a simple document that will often match the owner or landlord. Also, when working with public spaces, it's easier to hand over a document with a simple sentence stating, "This can be a service animal" and letting another party see the information, as opposed to having a long-winded protracted conversation (or even worse, argument) in public areas, with onlookers listening in and gathering round the discussion.

So, do some people scam the system, or game what the law states? Sadly, the reply is "probably yes." In everyday life, there is always room for abuse and people can try to take advantage of many systems that individuals as a society applied to protect the rights of those that need such protection. For instance, many drivers falsely display disabled parking placards to take advantage of free and convenient parking. Not forgetting the number of people that lie on the tax returns, claim improper tax deductions, abuse shop return policies, or do other bad acts.

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

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