Originally Posted by
rsteinmetz70112
The various Internet "registries" do their best to confuse ESAs and Service Animals. They sell vests and other accessories for the animals that mimic the vests used by Service Animals. There is no standard or requirement for these things. Not all legitimate Service Animals require any special equipment like the handles for seeing eye dogs, which are designed to communicate signals to the person the dog is guiding. My original point was that liers are going to continue to lie.
True enough, many Service Animals require no equipment at all (though they are required under ADA to be leashed or restrained, unless that restraint interferes with the performance of their duties).
But it's usually easy to tell a trained Service Animal from a pet. Service Animals are calm and quiet, but alert and attentive. They're not distracted easily and rarely if ever misbehave. But you can also tell by the behavior of their human companion - humans with SAs don't show a lot of demonstrative affection toward the animal in public, don't speak to the animal in baby talk, never feed the animal human food, and don't allow anyone else to interact with the animal (all of these things would distract the animal from its duties).
I want to see disabled people get all of the help they need to live their lives as they choose. I want to see those with mental illnesses get the help they need, as well, including ESAs. But the current legal situation is both incomplete and not well understood by the general public. The laws need to be amended to require licensing of Service Animals. Such a license is all that anyone ever need show to a business to gain access for the animal. And the license need not have any details about the human's condition, or even the animal's trained task, it only needs to show that a particular animal is a trained service animal. If the law were extended to allow ESAs to be SAs as well, that would be acceptable to me, so long as ESAs receive the same training and conditioning that other SAs get.
If an animal were licensed, it would be a SA that must be accommodated by law. If an animal were not licensed, it would not be a SA and businesses could apply the same rules to them as apply to ordinary pets. No confusion, no paranoia, no jerks acting as self-appointed Service Animal Police, and no backlash on those with real needs who follow the rules.