Going through an airport with Joan gives everything a surreal quality. When we got to JFK in New York one morning a few months ago, the harried pace of checking in and security was slowed because everyone wanted to spend time with her. Sometimes she stopped for a drink of water or to make eye contact with a baby. When we boarded our plane to San Francisco, a fellow passenger was taking selfies with Joan and sending them to his wife before we even took off. At one point I fell asleep and woke up to find him cradling her like a baby and cooing into her ears. Turbulence, which usually makes me turn to the drinks trolley, was a breeze: I just held her. Not to mention that visiting my family in California was so much more tolerable with Joan as a buffer.
At this point I should point out that Joan is a 40-something pound English bulldog. I adopted her from a Brooklyn animal shelter three years ago, when she was a year old, after she had been rescued from an abusive and neglectful home. Luckily, she immediately adapted to the life of love and luxury I was all too ready to lavish on her. She’s playful and surprisingly agile for a bulldog, but also enjoys sleeping for about 18 hours a day.
She’s over the 25lb limit most airlines have for bringing pets on domestic flights. And even if animals are below the approved size limit, airlines charge more than $100 (£73) to carry them, though in any case they won’t allow snub-nose breeds such as bulldogs or pugs to be checked in as cargo due to breathing concerns. But I can bring Joan for free and let her sit at my feet. And if my pet were a 120lb great dane or a tiny chicken, I could bring it on, too. That’s because Joan has been prescribed to me as an emotional support animal (ESA) for the past two years.
In the US, with a letter from a mental health professional, any pet can be named as such. That letter, which must state that the animal is medically essential for the owner, can override the rules: your pet can travel with you on a plane for free or it can live with you in a place that doesn’t usually allow pets. What’s more, no one can legally ask why you require it. It’s a loophole that, depending on whom you ask, is either helping people struggling with often unseen disabilities; making pet owners’ lives easier; or leaving the system open to abuse.
It is, for now, an American phenomenon (ESAs are not recognised as certified assistant animals in the UK), and it’s on the rise. Delta Airlines says it carries more than 250,000 service and support animals annually, an increase of nearly 150% since 2015. The Air Carrier Access Act defines emotional support animals as “any animal that is individually trained or able to provide assistance to a person with a disability; or any animal that assists persons with disabilities by providing emotional support”. They’re animals that don’t have special training (unlike a service animal, such as a guide dog for the blind, that has been trained to perform a task or service for its owner), but are there for psychiatric comfort. They are often cats and dogs, but ducks, turkeys and pigs have been spotted on board.
Unsurprisingly, it’s creating havoc on planes. For every dog like mine that snores at my feet during a flight, there are reports of far more unruly behaviour, from cats urinating on drinks trolleys to ducks blocking the aisles. In January, astonished airport passengers filmed a peacock awaiting the green light to board a flight in New Jersey; in February, a student told how she flushed her dwarf hamster down a toilet in panic after an airline refused permission for it to join her flight; in March, a French bulldog died after being put in an overhead locker; last year, a man was hospitalised and had 28 stitches in his face after he was mauled by a support dog in the seat next to him. Delta Airlines reports that incidents such as defecating have nearly doubled since 2016.
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I found it almost ludicrously easy to get a certificate for Joan a year after adopting her; I was keen to take her to California to visit my family, so looked for a website that offered online diagnosis. There are several; I obtained my letter from one called CertaPet. In its words, it is a “direct-to-consumer tele-health service” that connects clients to one of 40 therapists. The company was started in December 2014 by Erik Rivera, a US military veteran who had been a bomb technician in the Iraq war. “Consider the guys I know,” he says. “There was drug abuse and trauma issues. To me, mental health was not a taboo subject.” Rivera’s parents were psychiatrists, so, “growing up, I always had a doctor in my pocket, I always had access to people and didn’t deal with health care like most people”. He was looking for something “hyper-specific and very niche” that could connect doctors to patients in the privacy of their own homes. Something such as prescribing pain medicine would not lend itself well to such an arrangement, but dermatology might. He eventually landed on the idea of online mental health services that could, as his website states, “connect patients with licensed mental health professionals who can write them a recommendation for an emotional support animal”.
The screening process begins with a free, multiple-choice questionnaire based on the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders that asks questions such as, “Over the past two weeks, how often have you had little interest or pleasure in doing things that you usually like to do?” and, “Over the past two weeks, how often have you felt sad or depressed?” If what you want is a letter saying you’re anxious or depressed enough to have a support animal, it’s easy to know which of the answers – Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Often, Always – to pick. The disorders that can help get you a support animal letter can include anxiety, stress, insomnia, depression – things almost everyone can suffer from.
You get an automatic notice of whether you’re a good candidate. If you want to continue, you pay either $149 (£110) for a housing or travel letter or $199 (£146) for both. The next step is a longer online assessment that asks about your history of abuse and depression. “It does help us screen people who are dealing with day-to-day stress, but just like their dogs,” says Prairie Conlon, CertaPet’s clinical manager. “They go through the assessment. These are intense questions from anxiety and depression into schizophrenic tendencies, though we are not diagnosing. As a clinician, we look it over and then there’s a phone call.”
That’s how it worked for me: a quick pre-screening, payment, a test and a five- to 10-minute phone call with a clinician, describing my history of panic attacks and depression. Then I got a letter that they advertise you can get in less than 48 hours. “We are saying cats or dogs,” Conlon says. “We aren’t doing peacocks or anything like that. We also let them know if your animal is aggressive that voids the letter.” Does this leave them open to people faking or exaggerating symptoms? “Most of the therapists don’t feel people are abusing the system,” Rivera says. “At a company level, we don’t think there’s a lot of abuse happening. If you can figure out how to stop people from lying, I would like to hear that solution.”
Emily Cline is a cheerful 22-year-old social media manager who recently moved to New York after graduating from university in Florida. She’s in possession of an ESA letter from CertaPet for her Italian greyhound puppy, Calvin Cline. “I’ve been flying by myself since I was about five – my parents divorced when I was really little, and it was easier for me to fly back and forth between Dallas and San Antonio, which is a 45-minute flight versus a four-hour drive. I would fly 20 times a year as a child.” When she was about 12 and flying, “something didn’t click in my brain and I started to think we were in a metal tube in the sky. What if the pilot passes out? I would go over all of these worst-case scenario ideas with panic attacks where I almost felt as if I would have to get off the plane. I have panic disorder. It’s not diagnosed, but I know what’s going on.”
By the time she was in her second year of university, she was given a prescription for Xanax (alprazolam) for her anxiety. “I was surprised how easy it was. I couldn’t get an appointment for a school counsellor, but I could get a prescription for Xanax.”
The next year, she researched how a dog could help her deal with anxiety. She calls Calvin a Velcro dog. “He’s like a third arm, an extension of me. He just sits on my lap, he sleeps with me, he sits on the couch with me, he likes to sit on my shoulder. He’s very clingy,” Cline says with a giggle. “And what sets them apart is they’re really there for you and they depend on you so much for taking care of them. Your brain is so focused on taking care of this tiny, cute dog. That’s why flying with them is so great.” She recently flew with him and her boyfriend from Florida to New York without an issue. People who may exaggerate their symptoms so they can live with or travel with their pets is the least of our problems, Cline says. “I don’t think that’s the worst possible thing that’s going on in the world.”
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Like many millennial pet owners, Kim Ring, who is 25 and works in public relations in Denver, Colorado, calls herself a “dog mom”. Finn is her two-year-old jack russell terrier mix. “I am one of those annoying people who got a doctor’s note so I could bring my dog on a plane. I know it’s terrible, but I just wanted to take him home to meet my parents, who have a big backyard and live in St Louis, and didn’t want to pay an arm and a leg to do it. I do have anxiety and see a therapist for it, and I asked her to write a note on letterhead designating him an ESA. But the thing is, my dog has so much energy and there’s no way he would actually calm me down. I have to heavily medicate him for flights with CBD [cannabidiol-based] dog treats. He was mellow and didn’t bark, but he did shake. I feel as if it was almost a selfish thing for me to take him, even though everyone who sat next to me took pictures of him and played with him the whole time.”
Taylor Truitt, a veterinarian who owns the Vet Set, a clinic in the leafy Carroll Gardens neighbourhood of Brooklyn, is outspoken on the subject of ESA letters. “I see a potential problem that the people abusing the qualifications for support animals are actually putting people with legitimate working service animals at risk,” she said. “I think, for some people, ESAs have a legitimate purpose. My sister is a clinical psychologist who specialises in trauma, sexual abuse and veterans. For some of these people, their dog can save their lives, get them out of the house. It’s important to honour them with the respect of what a real ESA is.”
Truitt has seen evidence of malpractice. “One of my clients brought in their new frenchie puppy this weekend,” she says. “The breeder flew her up from Florida, and in the packet of paperwork he inadvertently left his letter from his therapist stating this eight-week-old puppy was an ESA to help him with his stress and anxiety. It was one of those form letters you can purchase online. I can’t imagine what special training an eight-week-old puppy can have to help with stress except congenital cuteness. I’ve been on a flight where this is out of control, with a dog running down the aisles and another barking. Are they going to emergency land the plane if your dog is having, say, respiratory issues? Probably not, so another question is what are you subjecting your pet to. We could use some etiquette.”
Delta Airlines responded to the recent increase in ESAs by changing its policy for service and support animals. Customers need not only a letter but clearance from a veterinarian or immunisation record and a confirmation of animal training. The US Department of Transportation says that unusual service animals (ie anything other than a dog or a cat) will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, but it’s at the discretion of the airline to exclude animals that are too large or perceived as a threat. Delta prohibits ferrets, snakes, goats, “farm poultry”, hedgehogs and beasts with tusks, for example.
It was a particularly flamboyant animal that ruffled feathers this year. In January, Brooklyn-based performance artist Ventiko was not allowed to take a United Airlines flight with her support animal, a large peacock named Dexter, whose elaborate Instagram presence features photos of him cuddling with naked women and hanging out on thrones. She was photographed by an incredulous fellow passenger as she tried to board the plane with Dexter at Newark and the story immediately went viral on social media. I emailed Ventiko asking about her story and, after a delay, she replied: “My apologies for taking a few days to respond. The entire situation over the past few months has been a bit traumatic. Slow responses is one of the residual effects.” We then spoke for nearly an hour, during which I found her a fairly sympathetic character who is just trying to do right by her peacock companion animal, a bird she adopted after his mate and their chicks were eaten by a predator in Florida. He’s bonded to her, and she seems almost uncannily devoted to him. But she decided she didn’t want to get any further death threats, and no longer wanted to speak on the record.
Last year, on a Delta flight to California, an Alabama man named Marlin Jackson was assigned a window seat. In a subsequent statement, his attorney J Ross Massey said, “He saw a large dog on the middle seat that he had to cross over to get to his seat. After he goes to buckle his seatbelt, the dog attacks him. The owner yanked the dog back, but it broke free and went into a second attack, which resulted in Mr Jackson needing 28 stitches. It was reportedly an ESA.”
In the wake of the publicity the case received, Massey has received “dozens if not hundreds of people calling me about a badly behaving dog on a plane”, he tells me. People contacting him with stories of ESA pets touching them, crawling on them or defecating at their feet are unfortunate, possibly disturbing, events, but hardly warrant the law, he says. “It’s a nuanced situation. Ultimately, the airlines will have to police themselves. I’m not sure how quickly the government is going to act.”
One group that would like to see a change is the service animal community – people such as Laura Falteisek, 64, a retired marketing manager who lives in northern California with five pedigree, elaborately groomed poodles that she has trained: Titan came first, then Jodie, his niece; the rest – Ava, Chin Chin and Sequin – are Jodie’s from litters with two different sires. Falteisek had a mutt as a child that she had wanted to be a service animal after reading about Helen Keller. “I think I only taught him ‘left’ and ‘right,’” she says with a laugh. She was drawn to poodles because “they’re tall, light on their feet, don’t shed and are smart”.
Her dogs respond to the command “bring”, because she is unable to bend well and has general mobility issues due to past injuries following an equestrian accident. “They reach for me and pick up stuff,” Falteisek says. “They could pick up a coin off the floor. They’ll do it all day long.” Titan, for example, can brace her if she stumbles. “If I drop my cane, he gets it for me. He’s great at helping me with stairs.” He can bark on command, indicate steps and barriers, and understands the command “help me”. People want to interact with the poodles when they are essentially at work. “I was at a grocery store in so much pain looking down at yoghurt, and someone goes, ‘Oh, look, it’s a poodle!’ I didn’t want to respond and I didn’t want to talk to anybody right then. They have vests that say, this is a service dog, not a pet.”
Her worry is that the bad reputation some support animals are getting will give all service animals a bad name. Someone told Falteisek she was considering getting an ESA letter for her dogs because, “I just can’t leave them in the car”. She explains that properly training a service dog is incredibly expensive and complicated, “and yet you’ll see people with these snarling, snapping dogs going everywhere with their owners.”
Animals are commonly used in therapy roles. In the UK, therapy animals have been an established idea for decades – Pets As Therapy is a charity founded in 1983 – and therapy dogs are common visitors in hospitals, care homes and schools. The charity Support Dogs provides dogs to support people with autism, as well as seizure alert dogs.
Although ESAs don’t exist in the UK, there are cases where pets have proved to be vitally therapeutic. Ellie Taylor, 20, who is from Rowley Regis in the West Midlands, found that her pet rabbits helped her through a difficult childhood. “When I was 13 in 2011, I lost my grandad suddenly and was also having problems at school with bullying. I wasn’t able to cope and became ill with anorexia.” Her mother got her professional help and she left school to concentrate on her recovery. “I still felt as if I was in hell and that nothing around me could possibly make me feel better. When my mum could see I was slowly improving, she agreed for me to have a rabbit, because she felt that if I had responsibilities, it would help me to get better.”
Taylor felt excited for the first time in two years. She got two rabbits, Roary and Tiger, and because she still wasn’t back in school full-time, spent nearly all her time with them. “They comforted me when I felt like I had no one and gave me some normality back by looking after them. It was weird that an animal could make you feel like this and take the pain away, but the pain began to ease and I felt like myself again.” Tiger died, and she and Roary got through that loss together. Where she lives now has a no-pets policy, but she fought to keep Roary with her and won, something she wouldn’t have had to do if she could have him officially recognised as a support animal. In 2016, vet charity PDSA honoured Roary with a “commendation for devotion” for his support.
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It’s indisputable that animals provide comfort and support to their owners, but whether that means they should be certified in this manner is less clear: where there’s a system, there will always been people trying to exploit that system.
Animals can be so much better at calming us down than humans. Take me, for example. Do I have anxiety? Sure. A history of depression? Yes. Insomnia? Almost nightly. And, like more than half my peers in New York, I have been in therapy. And the thing is, Joan does bring me endless comfort. After a terse email exchange with a colleague, taking her on a walk or just petting her on the sofa are effective balms for encroaching panic attacks. No one would look at me and think, “That woman needs a dog just to get through the day,” but, in a sense, I do.
Are we American pet owners needy? Yes, and owners like me who bring their pets while travelling are certainly entitled, but the overall indignity of travel has brought us here, too. It already feels like a free-for-all in the sky. If there are screaming children on every flight, and tiny spaces with not much legroom that make everyone uncomfortable, and they’re going to charge you for bottles of water and checking in a bag, what harm is there in bringing a pet that soothes you?
When my flight touched down in San Francisco, Joan woke from her slumber and soon ran into the arms of my waiting mother. When Mum asked about who I was dating, or when my dad wanted to complain about politics, I could tell them I was going to take Joan for a walk to the beach. For once, I wasn’t acting like a sullen teenager when interacting with my family. That respite, not to mention saving hundreds of dollars on boarding Joan while I was out of town, meant that loophole or not, it was totally worth it.
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