Service Animals, Emotional Support Animals, and Guide Dogs2212781

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

There have been news stories, articles, opinion pieces along with other editorials where people rant and complain about people they believe to be abusing the system. You hear some complain they had to sit near a dog at a restaurant they don't believe is really a "real" service dog, or others complain their neighbors use a pet in the "no pet" building because they claimed your pet is emotional support animal letter.

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

How can this affect people who legitimately own and employ a service animal to higher their lives? In lots of ways.

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

Some landlord and business people have begun asking for proof of status, despite the fact that asking for written or any other evidence isn't necessarily legal, and although many people who just love legitimate service animals and emotional support animals have not 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 people that make registrations services such as the Service Animal Registry of California so vital to legitimate owners.

Although registration is optional, it can benefit shortcut the housing rental and business access issues once the owner can produce a simple document that will often fulfill the owner or landlord. Also, when using public spaces, it is often easier to hand over a document using a simple sentence stating, "This can be a service animal" and letting one other party browse the information, as opposed to having a long-winded protracted conversation (or even worse, argument) in public areas, with onlookers listening in and gathering across the discussion.

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

However that percentage of abuse, which in the area of service animal laws is hopefully small, might just be a very small price to pay when compared to the higher objective of promoting access and equality for all.

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