Peacocks on a plane? Doggies in a diner? 'Emotional support' animals get the fish-eye

Mary had a little lamb. And it was absolutely essential to her emotional and psychological well-being.

Which is why it followed her everywhere — though maybe not onto United Airlines, which could be putting the kibosh on so-called "emotional support animals" after a woman tried to board one of its planes with her pet peacock at Newark Liberty International Airport on Jan. 28.

Snakes, possums, turkeys, spiders, along with puppies and kitties, can all — in theory — be rebranded as "therapy" animals by a mental health professional. And an increasing number of people, armed with doctor's notes or special tags issued by dubious "licensing" agencies, have tried to board planes and enter restaurants that normally don't allow free-range pets.

Sometimes, they've succeeded. But after the incident involving the emotional support peacock, United squawked.

“It did not meet guidelines for a number of reasons, including its weight and size,” the airline said. After six hours of wrangling, the woman and her comfort bird were sent packing, though the passenger pointed out that she had bought a ticket for him (his name is Dexter). "Tomorrow my human friends are going to drive me cross country!" Dexter grumbled in an Instagram post, courtesy of his human caretaker, a performance artist billed as Ventiko.

"Emotional support" animals — ESAs — are a relatively new phenomenon that has been embraced by some therapists and animal advocates.

They provide comfort to traumatized humans, proponents say, and can be as necessary to distressed people as guide dogs are to the blind.

But it's also not hard to see how such an idea could be abused.

"Its getting ridiculous now," says Joseph D'Angeli, director of the Wildlife Conservation and Education Center in Garfield (it specializes in bats and exotic animals).

"There's got to be a line drawn somewhere," D'Angeli says. "Can you imagine if I tried to bring my support bat on a plane?"

Somewhere, someone probably has — along with more garden-variety animals like the dog whose owner couldn't bear to see him shut up in the cargo area. Such passengers try to make the case that these animals, essential to their mental well-being, need to curl up next to them. In some cases, as with that peacock, it may be a stretch.

"A peacock is not a cuddly bird," says Brinda Jegatheesan, who teaches courses in animal-human interaction at the University of Washington. On the plantation where she grew up, in southern India, there were lots of peacocks.

"They're extremely territorial and unpredictable in their behavior," Jegatheesan says. "They don't like to be handled very well."

It was around 2008, Jegatheesan says, that she first began to hear about "emotional support" animals as a distinct category of animal aide. Like many, she has mixed feelings about the idea.

"The problem is, there are a lot of cases where people are just getting by, posing as having a condition they don't have, faking it," she says. "And that jeopardizes the cases of genuine people who need such services."

Ducks on a plane?

That banished peacock is only one of several such stories in recent years. In 2014, the New York Post carried a story that Ivana Trump, the ex-wife of the now-president, caused a stir at a fancy New York eatery by bringing Tiger, her 6-pound Yorkie, to the the table with her. "She even let the dog climb up on the table," a fellow patron complained to the Post. Trump insisted the animal was fully credentialed as a "comfort service dog."

The same year, a New Yorker reporter, armed with a fake letter of certification, was admitted to the Frick Collection on Fifth Avenue with her emotional support turtle, and into a Chanel boutique with a "companion" milk snake.

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At airports, "emotional support" animals have been turning up at departure gates with increasing frequency. Pigs, ducks and sugar gliders are just some of the animals that have applied (with some human assistance) for boarding passes. In 2017, about 76,000 United passengers turned up with comfort animals, nearly double the number in 2016, United told USA Today. In the absence of blanket regulations from the U.S. Department of Transportation, airlines are struggling to come up with their own individual policies. And given some recent incidents, several have begun taking a harder line.

Delta announced last month that, starting March 1, more documentation and 48 hours' notice would be required for both trained and untrained support animals. This after a "comfort" dog bit a passenger on a flight out of Atlanta in June. Other airlines, including American and United, either have changed or are considering changing their policies.

"Every airline is different," says Chris Diefenthaler of Assistance Dogs International, a worldwide coalition of 166 non-profit groups that train and place assistance dogs. "Most require a letter from a medical professional to verify that this person needs the animal to accompany them on the airplane due to emotional support. That only applies to the United States and Canada. Internationally, it's even stricter."

What they don't require is a certificate from one of the dozens of shady organizations out there that — for a fee — claim to "register" your pet as an official emotional support animal. "No registration is required," Diefenthaler says. "Of course, people can sell something that's not required."

"Emotional support animals" are a recognized legal category in one instance: the Federal Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988. If you have a professionally documented mental or physical disability, and a disability-related need for the animal for physical or emotional reasons (also professionally documented), the creature is no longer considered a pet by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and your landlord is not legally entitled to throw Whiskers out of your apartment, pet ban or no.

But in public places — planes or restaurants, say — "emotional support" animals are not a legally recognized right. Some pet owners behave as if it were, though. And some business owners don't seem to know the difference.

That's concerning to disabilities rights activists, who worry that ESAs muddy the waters between more traditional service animals, such as guide dogs, and furry, scaly or feathery aides of a more questionable sort.

"Most people — the general public — doesn't know the differences, or understand the differences," Diefenthaler says. "The terminology is extremely important."

Service animals, therapy animals and emotional support animals are three different things, she says.

Service animals are specially trained to perform specific tasks. Guide dogs are the most familiar example, although there are also dogs that are trained to hear, and do other things their human companions can't. (Mostly it is dogs, though service horses, pigs and monkeys are not unheard-of.)

Service dogs are generally trained for six months to two years, and then placed around age 2. In the United States, there is no national registration of service dogs, but Assistance Dogs International does accredit non-profit assistance dog organizations. The human-dog duos that graduate from ADI-accredited programs are certified as "teams."

Animals — like humans — can be asked to leave a business when they misbehave, Diefenthaler says. But service animals do have to be allowed in, according to the Americans with Disabilities Act. In 19 states, there are penalties for passing off an untrained animal as a service dog. In New Jersey, the fine is $100 to $500.

Line between man and beast blurs

"Therapy" animals are a different beast.

These are the dogs, cats and other creatures you sometimes see brought into retirement homes, hospitals and schools, to interact with humans. They're specially trained to be good around people. And though they don't have to be legally certified, many are registered with organizations like Pet Partners, a Washington State-based group — if only because most hospitals or other institutions wouldn't want to take a chance on an animal that wasn't vetted in some way.

"We register the volunteer and the animal as a team," says Katherine Ketter of Pet Partners. "A lot of facilities prefer to have a team registered by a therapy animal organization."

Emotional support animals are, generally speaking, not trained. The value of their emotional support is mostly in the eye of the beholder. And they're not legally required to be admitted to any public place — though businesses like airlines can choose to make allowances for them.

"I think everybody is emotionally attached to their pet," D'Angeli says. "If you're not emotionally attached to your pet or animal, there's something wrong with you. But where do you draw the line?"

People who try to pass off their pets as "support" animals in order to get them seated on the 3:10 flight to Albuquerque are easy enough to dismiss as selfish rule-breakers. But it may be understandable, given the cultural changes of recent years.

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The rise of veganism, the appearance of pet vacations and doggie spas and the disappearance of "pet" and "owner" from some people's vocabularies ("animal companion" and "caretaker" are the preferred terms) speak to our increased concern about animals, and our rethinking of our relationship to them.

The line between man and beast, once fairly well defined, has become blurry. At the same time, there have been documented cases (rare, but enough to raise the hackles of animal rights groups) of animals being injured or dying in airline cargo holds.

Under the circumstances, many animal lovers are asking why shouldn't Fluffy, or Dexter the peacock, sit in seat 24D? That is, if the airlines will let you get away with it.

"If you consider your animal a family member, why would you put a family member in the cargo area?" Jegatheesan says.