Posted 5/14/2006 03:09:00 PM by Douglas

I like animals as much as the next guy, but this is getting absurd, and no, it didn't come from The Onion:

The 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act states that anyone depending on an animal to function should be allowed full access to all private businesses that serve the public, like restaurants, stores and theaters. The law specifies that such animals must be trained specifically to assist their owner. True service animals are trained in tasks like finding a spouse when a person is in distress, or preventing people from rolling onto their stomachs during seizures.

But now, because the 2003 Department of Transportation document does not include language about training, pet owners can claim that even untrained puppies are "service animals," Ms. Froling said. "People think, 'If the D.O.T. says I can take my animal on a plane, I can take it anywhere,' " she said.

Aphrodite Clamar-Cohen, who teaches psychology at John Jay College in Manhattan and sees a psychotherapist, said her dog, a pit bull mix, helps fend off dark moods that began after her husband died eight years ago. She learned about psychological support pets from the Delta Society, a nonprofit group that aims to bring people and animals together, and got her dog, Alexander, last year. "When I travel I tell hotels up front that 'Alexander Dog Cohen' is coming and he is my emotional-needs dog," she said. She acknowledged that the dog is not trained as a service animal.

He is necessary for my mental health," she said. "I would find myself at loose ends without him."

[...]

These days people rely on a veritable Noah's Ark of support animals. Tami McLallen, a spokeswoman for American Airlines, said that although dogs are the most common service animals taken onto planes, the airline has had to accommodate monkeys, miniature horses, cats and even an emotional support duck. "Its owner dressed it up in clothes," she recalled.

There have also been at least two instances (on American and Delta) in which airlines have been presented with emotional support goats. Ms. McLallen said the airline flies service animals every day; all owners need to do is show up with a letter from a mental health professional and the animal can fly free in the cabin.

What does an untrained pit bull mix do for the emotional anxiety of the other 130 people that are stuck in the plane? Does it help anything if its owner is calm when it starts eating the face off a baby? I guess I'm kinda torn by this lunacy, because while I can't imagine sitting in a plane for several hours next to someone's therapy goat, I also can't imagine how that would be any worse than sitting next to most children. A goat might shut up every once in a while, and probably could be trained to not kick the back of my seat, unlike most children. And it definitely couldn't possibly smell any worse.