Fraudulent Assistance Animals Raise Concerns for Legitimate Helper Animals
Karen Ann Young has had Georgie, Joanie, and Danny, her emotional support Dachshunds, for over 10 years. She suffers from PTSD, depression, and an anxiety disorder, and says that her support animals have brought her great comfort during trying times. When she lost her house three years ago, Young had to search for almost a year before she could find a place that would accommodate her emotional support animals, despite the protections afforded them under the Fair Housing Act. She says housing managers were reluctant to permit them because they had been scammed by pet-owners claiming their ill-behaved animals were medically necessary when they weren’t.
The housing managers had a point. Pet owners are gaming the system by buying illegitimate certifications and merchandise online or getting sham letters from willing therapists to pass their pets off as emotional support or, worse, service animals. According to Young and others, the fraudulent assistance animals tar the image of legitimate helper animals. Handlers of both emotional support and service animals are offended by the duplicitous pet-owners and feel burdened by their actions.
“There are dozens of scam sites where people can go and pay money to get a certificate and register their dog as an emotional support animal just so they can fly without a fee and take their pets into stores,” said Young, who is blind and has a seeing eye dog in addition to her ESAs. “Most of them aren’t stupid. They know the law.”
Service animals are dogs or mini horses that have been specially trained to perform tasks for an individual with a disability, like guiding the blind or detecting a seizure. They are also taught to be well-mannered in public. Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), they are allowed to accompany their handlers in all public places, and they don’t need to be certified.
In contrast, ESAs are companion animals who can be of any species and serve a therapeutic purpose for people with a verifiable psychiatric disability. They have no special training. Emotional Support Animal certification can be obtained through a therapist, but often, illegitimate certifications are purchased from scam sites, like Waggy.pet, Therapypet.org, and USdogregistry.org. There is no national registry for ESAs, and regulations and certification guidelines for them are limited. Unlike service animals, ESAs are only covered under the Air Carrier Access and Fair Housing Acts, and aren’t legally granted access to public places.
The ADA doesn’t require service animals to wear any sort of signifying badge, so it can be tough to distinguish between the types of assistance animals, and, moreover, where they’re allowed. Under the ADA, only two questions can be legally asked to determine if an animal is a service animal: “Is this a service animal?” and “What tasks does the animal do?” But any questions about the handler’s disability can result in legal action. Abusers of the system take advantage of this policy, bringing their fraudulent ESAs where they are not legally permitted under the assumption that business owners won’t question them.
“The problem is, there are no real guidelines to follow, so everybody is left up to their own internal ethics,” said Chaz Stevens, CEO of ESA Doggy, a company that links individuals to therapists who can issue ESA licenses. “There’s sort of hedgy guidelines by the government, and there are industries where businesses are afraid to say no, because if they say no to the wrong person, and that person was disabled, they can get sued horrifically.”
Though there is no official registry for ESAs, researchers from the University of California at Davis found that the number of animals used for emotional support had increased ten-fold between 2000–2012, much faster than service dogs. Dr. Lynette Hart, a professor at UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, says the growing presence of support animals is linked to greater awareness of the option. But the influx of ESAs has raised suspicions that pet-owners may be cheating the system to dodge fees and to bring their pets places they’re usually not allowed.
“We know that some human health providers are ‘selling’ letters online to persons who are not ongoing patients,” Hart said. “Anyone can purchase such a letter. Some licensed human health professionals are signing off on letters for persons whom they have not met in person and with whom they have no ongoing relationship.”
Aside from these health providers, dozens of dubious service and support dog “registries” exist online that “certify” essentially any pet as a service or ESA for a fee. Service and emotional support dog vests, tags, and letters can easily be purchased on Amazon.
Stevens, an advocate for ESAs, says he managed to register a cactus, a muffin top, and a sasquatch as ESAs. His experiment demonstrates the baselessness of qualifying a pet as an ESA.
“This business is just bogus at times,” Stevens said. “It is full of ethically challenged clinicians, ethically challenged vendors, and ethically challenged consumers.”
As of 2019, 36 states have implemented laws dealing with assistance animal fraud. Last year, airlines cracked down on the rather lax rules regarding ESAs. They can now demand paperwork verifying ESA certification and vaccinations and can exclude animals they consider a safety risk. The DOT received nearly 4,500 comments on the topic in an open session last year and announced in August that a “Notice of Proposed Rulemaking” would come once the comments are reviewed. Professionals are also proposing more stringent guidelines for qualifying a pet as an ESA.
Critics argue that fraudulent assistance animals act inappropriately in public, skewing the image of legitimate assistance animals and discouraging business owners from allowing them into stores. They also can distract legitimate service animals from their sometimes life-saving duties.
“ I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been out and about to Walmart and other stores where people are brining their pets in and claiming them to be emotional support animals.” Young said. “I can’t tell you the times where my seeing eye dog, who is essentially my eyes, is being barked at or lunged at or otherwise distracted by untrained pets.”
Sophie Poost, a Systems Advocate at the Center for Disability Rights, said that more than anything, individuals with assistance animals are getting more questions from the public.
“I get a lot of questions, a lot of judgement, and a lot of remarks,” said Jessica De La Rosa, who has Brittle Bones Disease and has been accompanied by her service dog, Mayim, for eight years. “It’s very, very frustrating.”
