974: Emotional Support Animals | Skeptical Sunday

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1:09Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger, and this is Skeptical Sunday, a special edition of the Jordan Harbinger Show, where a rotating co-host and I break down a topic you might have never thought about, open things up, and debunk common misconceptions. Topics such as why the Olympics are kind of a sham, why expiration dates on food are complete nonsense, why tipping makes no sense, fast fashion, weddings, recycling, banned foods, toothpaste, chemtrails, and a whole lot more. Normally on the Jordan Harbinger Show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people, and we help turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you.

1:45We have long-form interviews and conversations with a variety of incredible people, from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers, and performers. If you're new to the show, our starter packs are a great place to begin. These are collections of our favorite episodes organized by topics that'll help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show. Topics like persuasion, influence, China, North Korea, scams and conspiracy debunks, abnormal psychology, crime and cults, and more. Just visit jordanharbinger.com slash start or take a look in your Spotify app to get started. Today on this edition of Skeptical Sunday, it is undeniable that the number of emotional support animals has skyrocketed in recent years.

2:23But as the number increases, so does the skepticism around them. Emotional support animals are now part of the tapestry of American life. Animals are in restaurants, they're at the mall, they're up and down the aisles of supermarkets urinating on things. The growing presence of so many animals in these businesses has become an issue for a lot of people. Are all these emotional support animals really necessary? Are pet owners simply exploiting the privileges given to service animals. Well, today, comedian Michael Regilio is here to break down what is broken down with America's emotional support animal culture.

2:57Hello, Jordan. Hi. Tell me if this sounds familiar. You're sitting in a crowded restaurant enjoying an overpriced hors d 'oeuvre when you notice a dog at the next table. This is not a service dog. A service animal is a highly trained animal, like a visually impaired person would have. What is sitting next to you is just an average pet. The sign out front clearly reads, no pets allowed, but not eight inches from your jalapeno poppers is a slobbering, panting dog. Perhaps you're allergic to dogs. Perhaps you're afraid of dogs. Perhaps the smell and behavior of an animal is not the vibe you had in mind when you made the reservation.

3:34You might wonder, how is this happening? But if you've been in the United States of America in the last 10 years, you know the answer. This is an emotional support animal. And they're not just in restaurants. They're everywhere. They're on planes. They're on trains. They're at the gym, the doctor's office, the clothing store, the grocery store, the freaking miniature train specialty shop. Life in America today means sharing every imaginable space with people's emotional support animals. You can find them anywhere. And I wasn't joking at the top of the show. I have seen them at grocery stores, pissing on things, growling in toddlers' faces and scaring the crap out of them, trying to tear open food with their mouths.

4:15I mean, these are not trained animals. Right. And I've witnessed the same thing. And the fact of the matter is no government institution actually keeps track of this stuff. But a study from the University of California showed a 1000 % increase in the number of emotional support animals registered by animal control facilities in the state. California, come for the beaches, and stay for the emotional support lemurs or whatever. Right. And it's important to stress the difference between support animals and service animals. So let's define our terms. An easy way to think about the difference is service animals do and support animals are.

4:55Okay, what do you mean by that? Service animals do things that are a benefit to their handler. They guide the blind, alert the deaf, retrieve items for people with mobility issues, warned about impending cardiac episodes or seizures, and help people with disabilities in a myriad of miraculous and impressive ways. These dogs are amazing. They make Lassie look like a crack addict cleaning windshields with a dirty rag at an intersection. Okay, all right. I get that you're impressed with service dogs. I think you're being a little rough on Lassie, but, you know, that's just me. Look, all I'm trying to say is service animals are not magical.

5:30They require intensive training and certification by the state, not just to say they're trained to do your taxes or whatever, but they're trained to behave amongst the public. No one has to worry about a certified service animal becoming aggressive or loud or defecating in a shared space. It ain't going to happen. Conversely, support animals just are. They have no training, and very often they just are the ordinary pets of people exploiting the rules. So that's a bold statement right there. There's no doubt that emotional support animals help some people. Maybe someone's going to have a panic attack, but their cat helps them calm down or something, right?

6:09Isn't there something to this? Actually, no, that's debatable. And we'll get into that. The problem, though, I'm talking about initially here is the explosion of ordinary people taking advantage of the laws that govern service animals. Most of us know someone who just sent away for a certificate online and now brings their dog with them everywhere. I know a few people who fit that bill. I guess we all do. But if the law provides for it and they have the certification, what's the problem? What's the big deal? All right. Well, let's start with what the law actually allows. According to the Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA, a service dog can legally accompany their handlers almost anywhere.

6:46Emotional support animals don't have the same ADA protection. Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990 to provide disabled Americans with the dignity of not having to explain their service animal and their personal disability to every shopkeep and server. It made it illegal to ask a person what their disability is or to see the dog's certification and made it so the denial of a legitimate service animal, which can legally only be a dog or in some cases a miniature horse, will land you a$100 ,000 fine by the DOJ. Wow, okay, a hundred grand in trouble with the DOJ. Doesn't sound worth the hassle.

7:27You know I gotta ask about the horse thing though. Okay. First, do yourself a favor and Google images of miniature service horses because they are beyond adorable. Second, service horses make perfect sense. Horses have been guiding humans for thousands of years. They might take a bit more time to train, but they do many things better than dogs. They have 350 degrees of peripheral vision. Really? Yeah. They are stronger than dogs, so they can carry things a dog can't, and they can pull a wheelchair. Plus, miniature horses have a much longer lifespan. So the$20 ,000 it costs to train a guide animal gives you more bang for your buck with a horse.

8:05On average, service dogs have a lifespan of about 12 years, while service horses can live anywhere from 30 to 40 years. And did I mention how adorable they are? How do you fly with a service horse? That's what I want to know. You know what? I mean, it is done. I've seen pictures, but I don't know. That is a tricky one. So instead of a seeing eye horse, are they called a seahorse? Anyone? No? All right. There's someone out there that liked that, I assure you. Maybe one person. Oh, look, I liked it then. Okay, look, the bottom line is the law is there to protect disabled Americans. It's one big don't mess with Americans with disabilities.

8:43It's a great thing. So when a person shows up with a dog at some establishment, the business owners and the employees have to weigh the consequences of engaging with them. Almost always, it's just easier to allow the animal in and hope the other patrons will be okay with their allergies or fears or my personal issue, having to look at your dog's asshole as I'm trying to eat my$100 lunch. Okay, but maybe it's just you being the asshole here. If the emotional support animals are helping, shouldn't you just be cool with it? Stop being such a wimp and enjoy the view while you're chowing down in your cruller donut.

9:17Look, unless it's a genuine service animal, no one should be cool with it. The law doesn't provide for bringing emotional support animals into restaurants. It just doesn't. Yet, many websites selling certification letters blur the lines between service animal and emotional support animals and offer to certify your pet as an emotional support animal. But here's the thing. According to the Fair Housing Act, no certification or registration or formal training is required. It just takes a doctor's note to get an emotional support animal. Well, but the doctor's note doesn't turn a pet into a service animal, at least not in terms of making your pet suddenly stop scratching people or taking food off their plate or barking or peeing on the chair legs or trying to eat fruit at the grocery store or whatever the hell.

10:04The doctor's note's not going to change the animal. Correct. Only extensive training turns a pet into a legally certified service animal. And here's the thing about emotional support animals. You can register as many emotional support animals as you want. There are no specific guidelines. If your therapist agrees that all your pets are there for your well-being, then you can have as many emotional support animals as you want. So are you saying then that there are no legal allowances for emotional support animals? The ADA doesn't acknowledge emotional support animals at all. However, the Fair Housing Act provides the right for an emotional support animal to live with its owner even if the housing doesn't allow pets.

10:42Until recently, the Federal Air Carrier Access Act included vague language that allowed people to manipulate the act and bring emotional support animals on planes. In 2020, the act was updated to specifically state that emotional support animals are not included in the definition of a service animal. Although a doctor's note is needed for a genuine emotional support animal to travel on some airlines, no legal certification exists. There is no legal certification. Anyone claiming otherwise is a scam artist. Even if you have a letter from your doctor, you still can't bring an animal into restaurants, theaters, or a freaking Ferris wheel.

11:22But companies are issuing these certificates. That's just a grift. Yeah, right. And people are buying them. I went to a few websites and these companies know they are being dishonest from the get-go. They're sowing confusion about the difference between service dogs and emotional support animals. They offer official-looking vests, letters, patches, very often with the claim that these accreditations, you can bring your animal almost anywhere. But if you read the small print, these sites, they all know that they're being tricky. They say this is not legally binding, but don't worry. Just show people this vest or this badge.

11:57They won't question you. They literally write it on the website. This is not legal, but it's great for bulls**t. And they are right most of the time. Like I said, the gatekeepers are usually reluctant to challenge people with animals. That is insane. So I understand the position the gatekeepers are in. I do. If somebody has an emotional support animal, they're telling you they have an emotional problem. Who wants to engage a stranger who's also your customer, potentially, on a personal issue like that? Especially if you might actually be in the wrong and then you get yourself fired or you get this big-ass fine.

12:29It's just easier most of the time probably to let that person, that super annoying entitled person, just have their way. Exactly. I mean, it puts clerks and restaurant workers in an impossible position. And it's expensive. Those certification websites aren't cheap. There's the basic fee for a letter. So as long as you have 80 bucks and a couple minutes, you can get a certification letter from this non-government, non-official website. And if you want your pet in a no-pets building or a dorm or something, that will cost you extra. And they set you up with a, quote, mental health professional who will give you a diagnosis.

13:03But again, the letter is just good for housing. And some landlords are catching on and turning these bullshit letters down. They want your actual doctor to write you a letter. There's a new law in California that you have to have a doctor-patient relationship established to get one of these letters. Ah, but there is a doctor involved in the certification, right? I mean, kind of. There are complaints stating that when people look up the accreditation of doctors from these sites, they don't even exist. They can't find these doctors. And with the emotional support certificates, you sometimes don't need to see a doctor.

13:34You just fill out this questionnaire online and supposedly a doctor looks at it and says, yeah, this counts. But sometimes you get a three-minute telehealth meeting on Zoom. That's going to cost you more, of course. And there are complaints after complaints about these sites and bogus certifications. I can't stress this enough. There are no legal certifications. You know what won't rip your face off on an airline, Michael? The sponsors that support this show. We'll be right back. Thank you for listening to and supporting the show. Your support of our advertisers keeps the lights on around here and keeps my support peacock fed.

14:05All of the deals, discount codes, and ways to support the show are at jordanharbinger.com slash deals. You can also search for the sponsors using the search box on the website as well. Please consider supporting those who support the show. Now, back to Skeptical Sunday. This seems to raise some ethical questions, to say the least. You know what it reminds me of? Remember back in the day before we had recreational marijuana use, we had the medical cards and you could go on some website. You'd literally just go, hi, I'd like to see the doctor because I get headaches. And they would have like a bank of doctors and cubicles that would jump on essentially a Zoom or Skype queue and talk to you.

14:42And I was doing an article about this for an online magazine. This is years ago. And I go and wait in the queue. It takes like five minutes. I paid 50 bucks or something. And the guy goes, Jordan Harbinger. Oh, I got a big fan of your show. And I was like, cool. I was trying to do this on the low to write this article for I think it was like Maxim or something like that. And the guy who shows up, the doctor's like, I listen to your podcast all the time. And I was like, and cover is blown. Anyway, I get headaches and I need weed. And he was like, no problem. And then I had a medical marijuana card that I could have used to buy marijuana, but I wasn't really doing that.

15:17I just wanted to see how easy it was and then write about it. It was ridiculous all around and kind of embarrassing at the end of the day. Yeah. I mean, I had a medical marijuana license back in the day as well. And I'm going to be honest with you, Jordan, when I say that I did use it to purchase marijuana. But you're so right about how BS this was. For my form, when it said, what ailment are you trying to cure with marijuana? I said, the anxious feeling of not being high. And the doctor signed it. Oh, no. That's terrible. It sounds like you were both high at that point. Probably. Look, both parties in the emotional support animal transaction are there for selfish reasons, in my opinion.

15:57The healthcare practitioner is there because he has the desire to make a quick buck. The patient has the desire to take their incredibly average dog everywhere. Two assholes. Actually, the dog's exposed butthole in a restaurant makes three, which gets me to my next point. The downside for everybody else stuck around a person's support dog. So I love dogs, even most other people's dogs. Look, I know not everyone does. sometimes they have a good reason, aside from being allergic or they're just not into dogs. Some people have trauma from being attacked by a dog. And it is different sitting next to somebody who's got an emotional support Yorkie who's just kind of sleeping on their lap versus somebody who's got a giant, massive dog.

16:40There's a person who goes to the park and lets their dog run around off leash. It's a big ass Rottweiler. And she's like, he's fine. He would lick you to death before anything. And I'm like, well, I'm not going to take your word for it over the safety of all these toddlers playing in the baby area where your dog who's off leash loves to run into because he's so friendly. It's like he could just kill someone before you can react because you're 50 yards away. Why should we believe you? So I talked with her. Now I'm like the park Karen. But after I said something, all these parents came up and they're like, thank you.

17:12She does this all the time. And we don't know how to handle this because there's a bunch of there's a lot of immigrants in my neighborhood, Chinese, Indian, et cetera. And they're like, we don't want to cause trouble. And I'm like, no, you're not wrong. She's wrong for doing this. And all these kids are, a lot of them are terrified because there's a dog that's three times their weight chasing them. It's stuff like this that causes the problem. What is it? The bad apples spoils the whole bunch. This is what gets me personally, is that sense of entitlement, like that almost all the people with emotional support, like my needs over yours, no matter what.

17:44It's not even needs, it's straight up convenience. No one needs to have their pet there. They just want it. and everybody else gets to pay the price because I like my dog and I don't want to go somewhere without my dog. Period. Of course. But even if you took them at face value, that this is a need, an emotional support need, it does put it above everyone else's needs. I mean, that's true. According to a 2019 Forbes article, the top complaints from airline passengers' employees are about untrained dogs being dogs. I mean, it turns out travelers don't love the barking, growling, biting, urinating, defecating in airports and on planes.

18:17Airlines reported an 84 % rise in dog-related incidents from 2016 to 2018. On a Delta flight in 2017, a passenger's emotional support dog attacked another passenger, seriously injuring him. That's really scary. The dogs I've come across on planes are actually pretty docile. Most of the time they're sleeping. Worst thing I've experienced is a cat actually got loose once and I think snuggled some unsuspecting folks. And it is a little jarring to wake up from a nap because a cat is walking, you know, doing that thing with their tail around your legs. If you don't like cats or you're allergic, I suppose that would be really annoying.

18:52Another time I had to step over a sleeping dog on the way to the bathroom. I mean, you know, gasp. But this sounds bad, though. What happened to that guy who got attacked? How did that happen? This guy sat in his cramped window seat. We've all been there. And the middle seat was occupied by a 50 pound dog. 50 pounds. OK, that's like a Rottweiler or Beethoven or something like that. Maybe not Not quite. It's a big dog. I think this one was a pit bull mix, if I'm not mistaken. But before the plane even took off, yeah, they're big. And they can be, when they get violent, and I know pit bulls get a bad reputation.

19:26I've known pit bulls. I've loved pit bulls. I know that it's not necessarily a trait of pit bulls when they get violent. But because of their massive jaws, when they do get violent, they are particularly dangerous. And before this plane even took off, the dog began growling at the man. When he complained, he was told nothing could be done. It was an emotional support dog. Before the plane even took off, the dog lunged at the man's face and mauled him. They rushed him to the hospital and it took 28 stitches to treat the gashes. The report states that there was so much blood, the entire row of seats had to be replaced.

20:01Man, I feel bad for the guy, but also I would be really pissed if my flight was delayed because of an untrained pet. But this is just one incident. It's not the norm. I do hope the resulting lawsuit taught everyone involved an expensive lesson, because that's, I feel, God, can you imagine getting attacked like that? I hope he sued the shit out of the airline. I do. I'm pretty sure he did. And the story is actually, I don't know why it's even more heartbreaking when you find out that the dog mauled the guy's face. They pulled the dog off of the guy. And then the dog got away a second time and mauled him twice.

20:35It's like, dude, when you get the dog off me, just keep it off me. Clearly, it wants to eat my face. I don't know. It just sounds incredibly traumatic. Also, if you can't control the dog that you have, you can't go around with the dog that you have. This woman at the park, again, she was perfectly nice, but she, again, you know, entitled. She weighs maybe like 110 pounds. She's very small. So she has the dog for probably there's a self-defense, you know, personal protection element there. But the problem is if her giant dog that weighs more than her decides to attack a toddler, she can't do anything about it.

21:09unless she's going to throw herself in between the dog and the toddler and then also get, I mean, she can't control the dog. This dog is so strong that it yanks on the leash when she's walking it to the park and she's jerking forward and barely holding on until she lets the dog off the leash. She has absolutely no control over this dog. The fact of the matter is these events are not that rare as you've witnessed. The Washington Post reported an emotional support dog on a Southwest Airlines flight bit a six-year-old girl in the face during boarding. There's many examples like this document, and it's not just for dog bites.

21:42Another flight from LAX to Philly landed mid-journey because an emotional support dog sh**ed so much that they ran out of cleaning supplies, which caused some passengers to puke. They made it as far as Kansas City before an emergency landing. Oh my God, that's really gross. I've been on some sh**ty flights, but that's beyond acceptable. To be fair, flying U.S. Airways has made me want to puke as well. And that's before being locked in a flying aluminum tube with a diarrhea machine. By the way, if you actually suffer from anxiety, what is going to happen when your dog bites a stranger on a plane and you're forced to make an emergency landing?

22:21It's getting out of control. The really ironic thing is for most of these people, they give the animal that's supposed to be curbing their anxiety, anxiety medication before the flight. Right, right. Like my emotional support animal needs an emotional support prescription. If your prescription for anxiety needs a prescription for anxiety, where does it end? I guess that's where I'm going with this. I mean, all these incidents led to the changes in 2020 when the Department of Transportation finally tightened the rules. I am starting to see why it's problematic that the animals themselves require no training.

22:54I hadn't really thought about it before. I thought, OK, you got your stupid certificate. Fine. Bring it in in Nordstrom. No big deal. If it pees, clean it up or tell someone and they'll clean it up. It sucks, but whatever. I mean, the grocery store stuff is annoying because they're damaging product and making it so that other people can't buy or use it. Well, first of all, I didn't know that they brought these on planes and they attacked people. That's terrible. And it just seems to be getting worse. And humans aren't the only victims. Service dogs, real service dogs, are now exposed to untrained dogs everywhere they go.

23:20The Counseling Today Journal records incidents of their study of the emotional support animal epidemic and reported that in 2017, an emotional support poodle bit an actual service dog that was calmly sitting next to its wheelchaired handler in the elevator of a pet-restricted building. Interesting. So the dog wasn't even supposed to be there. The other person had a service dog because they needed it. And this dog is getting bit by this poodle, which makes it so I assume the service dog can't really do his job when he's being attacked by another animal that's not supposed to be there. Some of the service animals really are incredible.