Service Animals, Emotional Support Animals, and Guide Dogs9324779

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

There have been news stories, articles, opinion pieces and other editorials where people rant and complain about people they believe 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 the neighbors possess a pet inside a "no pet" building simply because they claimed the pet is esa doctors.

A few of the commentary comes with an indignant tone, plus some people are downright angry.

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

For one, it may it harder 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 a landlord or business proprietor has heard negative stories claiming that some people are abusing the machine, it can cause them to look suspiciously at all claimants.

Some landlord and business owners have begun seeking proof of status, even though asking for written or any other evidence isn't necessarily legal, although many owners of legitimate service animals and emotional support animals haven't taken advantage of registering them, and therefore have no such documentation to produce.

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

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

So, perform some people scam the machine, or game the law? Sadly, the reply is "probably yes." In everyday life, there is always room for abuse and individuals can make an effort to take advantage of many systems that we as a society put in place to protect the rights of those that need such protection. For instance, many drivers falsely display disabled parking placards to benefit from free and convenient parking. Not forgetting the number of folks who lie on the tax returns, claim improper tax deductions, abuse store 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 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 few people who scam service animal laws will be the price we gladly pay to make sure that the disabled inside the great state of California have equal access under law.