gobbo,

What Chess said. If people can't function in a restaurant without a dog by their side, they can get delivery.

What if you secretly found out that the pilot was dealing with a stressful life situation without seeing a professional? For example, at dinner you heard his wife is divorcing him and his dropped out of college and he can't believe he worked this hard to see his world crumble around him.

1) should he be required to see someone?

2) should he be grounded?

3) if he was prescribed a dog to help him cope, why would that be problematic? Would anti-depressants make you feel any safer?

4) do we have a right as passengers to know any of this information?

What is so horrible about a (well behaved) dog in a restaurant? Allergies, sure, but are those triggered by having a dog half a room away from you?

Fear of dogs? If you're going to go through life avoiding every instance of being in the same room as a dog you're going to have a hard time. Seems like you need to do something about that rather than cry about someone bringing their dog to a restaurant.

I think CA Governor Jerry Brown stated it best:

"Not every human problem deserves a law."

Fwiw that seems really insensitive to me. But I think we are going to have to agree to disagree on that.

So when someone is afraid of dogs, has a crippling fear for them, he should just need to do something about that when someone brings a dog in a restaurant where dogs aren't allowed.

When someone has any other mental issue, he is allowed to bring his own pet everywhere, with zero regards to other people or rules of a specific place.

Does not sound fair.

I have really appreciated your honesty in this thread Gobbo. I do think it is ironic that you are asking for compassion and understanding, but are not trying very hard to empathize with the people who get anxious around your dog.

I am a huge dog person and I also don't really understand why some people freak out around dogs, but I give them the benefit of the doubt and accept their feelings as legitimate, just as you are asking people to do with your mental illness.

That dog is awesome.

Feral, gobbo:

We live in civilized society where we have various rules and standards. Not every person can take place in every single activity in society, that's ridiculous.

Let's say someone is afraid of going faster than 25mph in a vehicle. Does that mean they can get on a public bus and require it to stay at less than 25mpg? No. That means they need to find a different mode of transportation.

Similarly, if someone can't function without having a dog, then they don't get to go places where dogs aren't allowed. That's all I'm saying.

What if someone has anxiety about clothes. For their emotional well being they can only be naked. Do you think that gives them the right to go to any restaurant they want naked?

To me it comes down to risk and which is truly the bigger issue. I don't know how many people have serious fear of dogs and that is probably causing me to not understand the impact that having Oscar in a public place can have on people. But I do know how much he helped me.

Note, I'm not claiming that emotional service dogs should be allowed. Most of my comments in this thread are talking about legit service dogs. The problem I see is that people are using complaints against emotional service dogs that would apply to ALL service dogs, not just the ones that people find frivolous. So to me, that begs the question how much more necessary are physical ones than mental ones and are ALL physical service dogs more valid than mental? That seems extremely unlikely to me and indicative of a huge bias in our culture.

Appreciate the kind words. Oscar is my bro.

Diablo, same response to you in essence. I'm going to assume that you are fine with seeing eye dogs and many other "legit" service dogs. Are you claiming that all of those dogs are more necessary than psychiatric service dogs? Those seizure and diabetic alert dogs that people have claimed "aren't necessary" get full federal protection but if a veteran has PTSD and has a serious freakout at loud noises unless Rex is there to calm him down, he's **** out of luck when it comes to functioning in society? That seems like a huge double standard.

This is a stupid comparison.

Being stressed because of a certain situation isn't the same as being diagnosed with an inability to cope with typical day-to-day situations.

You're a doxie guy? We've got a mixed breed one that acts and mostly looks the part, but has long legs. Probably mixed with pointer. Was a stray, someone owned him at one point and had a chip put in, but I guess lost interest in him quickly as they never had their personal info registered to the microchip company.

As someone in the medical field I have mixed feelings about this. If someone with PTSD or panic disorder needs a service dog to navigate crowded areas, that seems perfectly reasonable to me. On the other hand if someone is borderline, but has some hack doc sign papers for a potbelly pig for her "bipolar" and she thinks its reasonable to sit that thing next to me on a plane I would be pissed.

I have seen a couple pts w severe autism who had a dog w/ them at all times and it made a huge difference in making sure they didnt take off running randomly. Dog could also calm the kid down if he started freaking out over something or getting violent.

I would worry more about a "tipping point day." That is just me.

Psychological problems are very real.

Our people society needs to come to an agreement with our animals in public.

There is a lot of disagreement and why should rights of people who "need" an animal trump those who fear animals (a lot).

Who is the arbiter of deciding. Ask ten doctors and you will get eleven different responses. And a lot is based on their own beliefs as well.

And how do we decide who is scamming the system? And what penalties to enforce if they are?

I wasn't before him but I am now. Best dogs ever.

I hate going to large group networking functions where I don't know a lot of people.

If I had an animal to accompany me, I would feel more comfortable. My blood pressure would probably decrease.

Do I medically deserve an animal or shouldn't I just learn coping mechanisms without crutch of an outside aide?

I am not sure these animals help anything long-term. Addiction potential.

I think the whole "won't somebody think of those who are afraid of dogs"-argument is stupid. Some people are deathly afraid of ****ing balloons. We can't cater to everyone's irrational fears.

FWIW I don't think it's unreasonable for a restaurant to have a no-dogs policy or whatever, that's up to them. I just think saying that's out of concern for people with fears is silly.

gobbo,

Good points, and tbh I am not quite sure where I'd draw the lines on these types of things. I think it's very case-by-case, depending on the person, situation, etc. The more optional the activity becomes, the less I'm willing to make an accommodation.

Note that my comments are not restricted to mental illness. In general, I think a lot of ADA type stuff to try and make everything accessible to everyone is pretty silly. But of course, slippery slopes etc.

Feral,

That's a really odd position to me.

You think catering to someone's irrational fear of being around people without their dog by their side is something we should cater to, but we shouldn't cater to someone's irrational fear of being near dogs?

Yeah I agree. Depends on the individual cases but it's hard to give that power to one person to decide if it's worth it. Society is hard!

This is also a silly argument. How do you feel about people who do breathing exercises or meditate to deal with their anxiety? Should we ween them off those eventually? Should we be worried about their addiction potential?

I like to go running to stay healthy and fight off heart disease. Sometimes I go running with a friend, it helps keep me motivated. UH OH OUTSIDE AIDE. Major addiction potential. I should be weened off that habit!

The situation is that, completely disregarding this entire ESA/service animal discussion, people who fear dogs are going to get into uncomfortable situations. It's unavoidable. Banning ESAs and SAs isn't going to change that for them. The only way to avoid that is to not go out in public at all.

I know exactly where the line should be drawn for me. I don't care about dogs, cats, pigs or ponies, but if someone sits down near me with a Tarantula as their Emotional Support Animal, I'm going to be punching on them like they are Walmart shoppers.

Gobbo, did you have to train Oscar a lot? I have a friend with a dachshund and he's a stubborn little bastard. Also a sweet dog that loves to cuddle and gets so excited when he sees me he pees himself, but really, really stubborn.

Is the irony intentional?

FC,

Fear dogs? Don't go to places where dogs are allowed.

Fear being without your dog? Don't go to places where dogs aren't allowed.