Unpopular Opinion

I dunno man, this is a fairly popular take overall, among people who are involved in emotional support training. Also among people doing service training. Also among people that have genuine need for an ESA.

There's a big movement to place greater limits on what kinds of animals can be ESA. Breed wise, if the training was done to the same standards as service dogs, or ponies, it wouldn't be an issue. Way more dogs wash out for behavioral incompatibilities with service than you think.

Hell, I've heard arguments for limiting ESAs to only dogs, though that isn't useful or necessary imo. As long as the animal is either small enough to not be an issue, or is one that can be trained to standards, it isn't like the kind of training necessary is dog exclusive. Dogs are just the best at it.

Anyway, the arguments you're making are well supported by anyone with exposure to the issue on a professional level, so I had to throw the downvote for being at least mostly popular. Sorry, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Ah "emotional support animals" aka pets. If they were trained like a service animal, they'd be a serivce animal.

Fully agree.

At least the US no longer considers ESAs in a similar light to service dogs now, apparently people were abusing that to take animals into places they really shouldn't be, and to waive paying for their pets on flights (as well as have their pets beside them on the flight, rather than sit in a cage in the cargo hold)

My slightly related unpopular take would be, people should NOT touch or otherwise distract someone else's trained service dog. Real service dogs fulfill a necessary role for their owner, whose condition may require the dog's full attention to look for warning signs - such as e.g. imminent fainting, blindness, imminent panic attack etc, and even seek help for the owner if needed. There are a bunch of medical situations where an individual may not able to maintain control of themselves for a brief period of time

The difference is in public access. ESA aren't protected by law to be in restaurants, businesses, etc. so even if they are untrained, they are not more dangerous than someone being irresponsible with a pet. Then normal pet laws and liabilities should be helpful.

In contrast, a psych service dog needs to be on point and behaving appropriately with proper training. They are protected and come into more contact with the public, so have higher levels of control required. There's public access testing and the like as tools to help safeguard this.

ESA's have no special permissions to be anywhere other than a domicile that would not normally allow pets. I have my dogs registered as ESAs; it was the only way to keep them when I moved as I couldn't find anyone to take them and I was not going to put them in a shelter around here, since all the no-kill shelters were not accepting new animals.

There is another kind of psychological support animal, which I always forget the name of, that does require training to be allowed in stores, restaurants, and other establishments however.

Most people who bring their pets into places are just entitled pricks. They might have an official looking vest, but those vests aren't a requirement, are not official in any capacity, and you can easily buy them with "service dog" labels without any of the actual paperwork you would have if it was a real service animal; including an ESA.

You may be getting downvoted because this is a fairly mainstream position. Service animals, emotional support pigeons included, should be a regulated category, proven safe to take in public at a bare minimum.

Agree, and the downvotes you receive confirm it's indeed an unpopular opinion. And people seemingly can't handle it.

It's like we're back on reddit...