Service Animals, Emotional Support Animals, and Guide Dogs9967128

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

There have been news stories, articles, opinion pieces along with other editorials where people rant and complain about people they feel to be abusing the system. 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, varieties complain their neighbors possess a pet in a "no pet" building because they claimed your pet is emotional support animal letter.

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

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

For one, it may it more difficult to navigate bureaucracy of the world when your claim of your disability and your service or emotional support animal's status is questioned. If your landlord or company owner has heard negative stories claiming that some people are abusing the system, it can cause these to look suspiciously at all claimants.

Some landlord and business people have begun asking for proof of status, even though asking for written or another evidence might not be legal, although many those who own legitimate service animals and emotional support animals haven't 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 such as 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 which will often satisfy the owner or landlord. Also, when utilizing public spaces, it's easier to hand over a document using a simple sentence stating, "This is really a service animal" and letting another party browse the information, rather than having a long-winded protracted conversation (or even worse, argument) in public, with onlookers listening in and gathering around the discussion.

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

But 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 goal of promoting access and equality for those.

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