So this video above is what made me think more about the sign I saw at Safeway. I thought at first it was a satire article but it turned out to be a true and legit story. A person tried to bring their peacock on board a United flight, she paid for a seat for the peacock, and even though United told her 3 times before the flight it would not be allowed on board, she tried anyways and was denied at the lobby. An emotional support peacock…….no lies, first time I’ve heard of that.

Let me make one thing very clear up front: I am NOT AGAINST service animals , I think they are a needed resource.

First, we can start off by going off what the ADA distinctly defines as the guidelines for service animals and go from there:

Service animals are defined as dogs that are individually trained to do work or perform tasks for people with disabilities. Examples of such work or tasks include guiding people who are blind, alerting people who are deaf, pulling a wheelchair, alerting and protecting a person who is having a seizure, reminding a person with mental illness to take prescribed medications, calming a person with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) during an anxiety attack, or performing other duties. Service animals are working animals, not pets. The work or task a dog has been trained to provide must be directly related to the person’s disability. Dogs whose sole function is to provide comfort or emotional support do not qualify as service animals under the ADA. Under the ADA, service animals must be harnessed, leashed, or tethered, unless these devices interfere with the service animal’s work or the individual’s disability prevents using these devices. In that case, the individual must maintain control of the animal through voice, signal, or other effective controls. A person with a disability cannot be asked to remove his service animal from the premises unless: (1) the dog is out of control and the handler does not take effective action to control it or (2) the dog is not housebroken. When there is a legitimate reason to ask that a service animal be removed, staff must offer the person with the disability the opportunity to obtain goods or services without the animal’s presence.

So I don’t think there is any viable argument that can be made in the case of the peacock right? Let’s now see how that applies to what Safeway is doing because I personally, think this is an issue that has started to get out of hand in some cases and is being abused and hurting those who actually have trained service animals. It seems in too many cases now people want to go on Amazon, buy a $12 “Support Dog” vest and then they feel that gives them free run because it’s a “support animal”.

When someone enters a public space, the store can only ask two questions (see below):

When a person with a service animal enters a public facility or place of public accommodation, the person cannot be asked about the nature or extent of his disability. Only two questions may be asked: 1. Is the animal required because of a disability? 2. What work or task has the animal been trained to perform?

Now I have a dog, his name is Duke. Duke is awesome and the best but is he a service dog, no way. Let’s say I go online and buy a vest on Amazon (about $15), and strap it on my dog, Duke, and head into Safeway. The store manager can stop me and ask me those two questions and all I have to say is “Yes” and for question 2, essentially say whatever I want and the store has to seemingly accept it right? Does that bring liability on the store or the person if the dog were to bite another customer or act in a way that does not fall in line with the defined behavior of a service animal?

I applaud Safeway for at least taking a visible stance against this even though I still feel it’s very tough to enforce. At most hopefully they make some people think about the issue and decide not to bring their non-service animals in. I wish Safeway would be as forceful with other things going on around their property but that’s another article, not this one.

Let’s look at the example below , from a twitter post of two dogs, one who is visibly a service dog and one that I question highly. What are your thoughts on what you see below?