Emotional Support Animals. Are you kidding me? A rant.
 

Flew BOS-MIA on a 757 in F yesterday. Boarded about 25 minutes before departure, and the flight was packed. Took my seat in 1B, then I turned and saw two (yes, two!) 20-30 pound show dogs sitting on the floor in front of the people across from me. Then it started - my terrible allergies! Congestion, runny eyes...

Before the 2L door was closed, I went to the galley to ask the FA about the dogs (thinking they had to be in a carrier, which usually prevents my allergies from flaring up). He rudely told me that I was wrong, and that if it was such a terrible problem for me, he could make a PA asking if someone in coach wanted to switch seats with me. I was stunned, and I took my seat. I ended up standing around row 9 for most of the flight.

I wrote AA customer service, and they said that it sounds like these were either emotional support animals or seeing eye dogs. Given that these two people were reading American Way during the flight, the dogs couldn't have been seeing eye dogs. They appeared to be show dogs that this couple was masquerading as "emotional support animals." What kind of crock of b*** s*** is the concept of an emotional support animal!? Mandated by the government, no less. The FAA (or whatever federal agency came up with that mandate) needs to take its head out of its a** and focus on more important things!

I then inquired about any sort of policy the airline has for people who are highly allergic to animals. I got a response that there was none and that it was up to the FAs to try to accomodate.

Anyone else with a similar experience?

Rant over. Thanks for reading. :)

BTW - just hit 120k BIS miles this year, and I've NEVER seen an emotional support animal before...

24+ years and I've never heard of it. Also sounds like the people who owned the dogs could give a ****. And a severe thank you to the FA. Nobel Peace prize for compassion to follow.

I had never heard of this policy either (although I'm only 27). Here's the original response I got...

"Emotional support and service animals are different from pets traveling in the cabin
as they provide emotional support to an individual with a mental health-related
disability or service to a person with special physical needs. The U.S. Department of
Transportation requires that U.S. carriers must accept emotional support and service
animals for travel in the cabin; these animals may ride in the customer's lap or on
the floor at their feet and are not limited to certain type of animal."

At least you didn't have it this bad:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=757579
The pictures are linked at post #56.

Up until recently, I can just see Siegfried and Roy claiming that they needed a white tiger or two for emotional support while flying :rolleyes:

Cheers.

The only reason I know of such is that on one episode of Airline this woman tried taking along her pouch on WN outside of a cage (apparently little fi-fi did not like being put into a cage). Anyway, the GA said only seeing eye dogs or emotional support dogs and denied her boarding.

I agree that it sounds fishy that a grown adult needs the company of Fido to make it through the day (or the flight).

Not sure what the FA could have specifically done but making an announcement to the effect of putting the OP back into Y was probably not the way to go. Only on a MIA flight is all I've got to say.:eek:

I feel for you. From what you're saying they are clearly trying to bend the rules and it wasn't professional of the FA to respond that way. While I am a dog lover and have a dog of my own, I respect others that don't. I think you should write back to AA and explain the FA's attitude and the fact that you had to hover around the Y cabin for the duration of the flight. Who knows, maybe you'll get some miles.

The people seated in F with the dogs also probably got a free upgrade as they wouldn't fit in Y. It's amazing how weak some people are.

But seriously folks- while the attitude that the FA showed was far from ideal, what could he actually have done? The rule, while it does seem silly to me as well is, apparently, a rule that AA (and that FA) must follow. Had it been a seeing eye dog, the OP would still have had the same allergy problems, but we'd not have been as judgmental toward the other passengers. I still haven't seen any (and I don't have any) suggestions as to how this could have been handled, aside from losing the 'tude.

Cheers.

I explained the FA's attitude in the first email and that I stood at the mid-cabin lav, and the response was that they work hard to ensure that flight attendants are courteous and helpful. I did write them back, though, to ask how I should handle the situation in the future or how to avoid the situation in the future, other than giving up my expensive seat or standing most of the time...we'll see how AA responds.

Pigs, horses (miniature) and monkeys are all recognized service animals. If bringing your monkey you need to buy it a seat though. I wonder if monkeys qualify for mileage accrual in AAdvantage?

If you have allergies, the airline should "reasonably" accomodate you. The FAs reaction doesn't seem to meet this criteria.

Most folks with severe allergies carry medication with them. In lieu of that, maybe the FAs should have paged for a DR to open the medical kit for the epi.

If they had been crated, would your allergic reaction have been any different?

I once had a seminar lecturer who had a service dog because he was prone to seizures. The dog was supposed to be able to detect the signs of a seizure before he had one, so as to provide warning, and to alert others if necessary.

Obviously, I have no way of know what happened on the OP's flight, but I wanted to mention that I've run into a service dog that was not a seeing eye dog.

I usually have no allergic problems if the dogs/cats are in a carrier and under a seat. In those cases, there's very little dander flying about. But these dogs were moving all over the row.

And to the person who asked, yes, I had allergy medicine with me. But pills take a while to kick in and don't treat the causes of allergies, they just help you deal with the symptoms. Towards the end of my flight, the itchy, watery eyes got better, but I was still really congested....

I really do think these were show dogs. They kept chatting with the flight attendant about the different categories of dogs in a dog show, and how they're based on the height of the dog (up to its shoulders). They even corrected the FA who incorrectly (apparently) thought that dog shows decided which category a dog goes into (like toy, etc) by weight.

Kremedonut is correct there are many services that animals perform that are not limited to being a person's "eyes". The emotional support animal pushes the bounderies on this issue though. They are there for just what the name implies. The person "feels better" when they are with their animal. IMHO its all a giant stinking load of BS. If you have such awful emotional issues that you can't leave the house without fido, then perhaps travel is not for you.

I have known several persons who have the usual type of service animal and they had a strict regimen that they performed with their animals to minimize dander and other alergans and were fastideous about minimizing the animals contact with other humans and animals to maintain that cleanliness. I doubt these emotional show hounds fell into that catagory.