Admittedly, I don't fly all that often. I don't think I was on even one plane last year. And the last flight I took was rather pleasant, because it didn't have that issue. But I remember one flight in particular that, I'm fairly certain, held more canines than humans. The stench was horrific, and made me long for the good old days when cigarette smoke was the worst odor in an airplane cabin.
But it's not just airlines that have this problem.
As for "why," I'll tell you why, at the risk of mortally offending any readers who might be faking their service dogs: because they're inconsiderate twats.
There are people with legitimate need for a service animal. I get that. I'm in no way ragging on them. The fakers make their lives worse, though, because it leads the rest of us to stop taking true service animals, and their accompanying humans, seriously.
On the first leg of that trip, from New York to Los Angeles, a dog in a “service dog” vest barked at me at the gate. The dog (not its given name), looked to be a stout French bulldog, paced back and forth, and yapped at a couple of other travelers.
Okay, "(not its given name)" is legitimately hilarious.
It all made me realize how many dogs traveling these days are designated service dogs, so many that there’s no way each one was a thoroughly-trained working canine. Some of these pooches had to be impostors.
Ya think?
The trouble is, it's rude (and sometimes illegal) to call them out on this. Which is one reason the humans can take advantage of their Main Character Syndrome.
I'm fully aware that conditions requiring service animals aren't always visible. Hell, my ex-wife had epilepsy. She never had a service dog, but other epileptics do, and for very good reason. Point is, you'd never know she was in any way "differently abled" or whatever the current proper nomenclature is, unless she told you or had a seizure (rare) in front of you; she was a belly dancer, for fuck's sake. So yeah, not everyone with a service animal is obviously in need of one. But, again, that just makes the problem worse, because it's easier to fake.
Why are there so many? Why and how do so many people have them? Is certification that easy to get? Do this many people need them? Why is this one barking at me? Are these people who just want to take their dog on their trip? Does being suspicious of some of them make me awful? Is a fake service dog really that bad?
Because many people are inconsiderate twats, because many other people support and enable inconsiderate twattery, yes, no, because it's not a real service dog, yes, no, and hell to the exponent of yes.
Sadly, I could not speak to an actual service dog for an interview regarding this contentious subject.
Funny shit like this does manage to dilute my rage somewhat.
More and more people want to travel with their pets, and despite airline assurances about safety, owners still harbor some overall worry about traveling with their animals in cargo.
That's legitimate. It does not, however, excuse inconsiderate twattery. Also, "want to travel with their pets" is a whole different ball game from "need to travel with their pets."
At the same time, traveling in the US with a pet dog in cabin — thanks to a multitude of rules — is actually difficult.
We could re-regulate the airline industry, but... hey, why are you laughing?
“There are plenty of owner-trained, well-behaved service dogs, and they are training their dogs to do actual physical tasks, and they should be given access. But I think we’re also talking about a lot of people not wanting to leave their dogs at home,” Reiss says.
Again—because this comes up anytime someone rants about this on the internet—I am in no way saying that people who actually need a service animal are the problem. I am, in fact, saying the opposite: that the people with fake service animals make the lives of people with real service animals more difficult, and the last thing they need is more difficult lives.
That said, it’s even more complicated, because no one wants to be a person who treats someone with a disability with suspicion or doubt.
Then tighten the requirements, for shit's sake.
“That’s the thing, the rules don’t even matter,” Molly Carta, a woman living with cerebral palsy who has a service dog named Slate, tells Vox. “I feel that way half the time too. I’m like, why did I pay $50 for this vet visit to get this form filled out? This person over here is just going to walk on with their dog.”
I just want to say that if that were my name, I'd absolutely change my first name to Magna.
For a long time, Carta believed that educating people about how service dogs are a medical need was the answer. But the more and more time that passes, the more she’s realized that more public awareness doesn’t work if people aren’t willing to listen.
Words of wisdom, indeed.
There's a lot more at the link, of course. And yes, I'm aware that the solution would need to be more nuanced than "tighten the requirements," as I said above.
In the meantime, I'm avoiding flights as much as I can. Except, of course, for flights of beer, wine, whiskey, or fancy.
