Ok I have a question for #DisabilityMastodon about ESAs and Service Animals. What do we think about Service Animals being allowed in places but not ESAs?

I have kind of a fraught relationship with this, b/c I have an ESA. She's too nervous herself for me to want to take her places, but I can imagine having an ESA in the future who I would want to bring with me sometimes. In some instances ESAs are allowed, others not, and I kind of feel like its a little unfair for it to be such a grey area

@KestrelSWard Someone who needs a service animal, literally cannot navigate outside life without it. Those needing ESAs will be uncomfortable, but they can manage. You won’t get run over trying to cross the street cause you left your ESA at home, but that’s not the case for a blind person.

@AlliFlowers Mm sometimes ESAs are more important to that. Some people literally cannot function in public without the ESA. That kind of crippling anxiety isn’t common but it does happen often enough, and it makes navigating public spaces every bit as difficult and dangerous as if you were blind or in a wheelchair. Many of those people are completely homebound, & I wonder if they would have more freedom if ESAs were allowed.

@KestrelSWard If it is that bad, what you need is a service animal. ESAs are not trained.

@AlliFlowers Sometimes they are. We have two trained ESAs who come into the libraries around finals time to support the students. They are trained and registered. And I have absolutely run into service dogs who are not well trained. Anybody can buy a service dog vest online and put it on their self-“trained” animal, which doesn’t always equal a well-trained animal. The only major difference between an ESA and a service animal is the type of support they provide.

@KestrelSWard People who put service vests on non service animals should be fined. If they’re trained, why not register them as support animals?

@AlliFlowers Sure. How do you tell if it’s a “real” service animal or not without thoroughly violating every service animal handler’s privacy to root out the bad apples though? And registering an animal is tricky because there’s no national oversight board on service animals. So there’s no national registry, the registries are I think private non profit things and can charge whatever they want. Disabled people are often extremely poor & cannot afford fees.

@KestrelSWard Normally you can tell by the behavior of the dog. The “real” ones are not distracted by anything, they will not attend to strangers, they stay alert at their owner’s side.