Emotional support animals (ESAs) require no training, and ESAs are assigned to people who are not emotionally stable.
Dogs are also dangerous animals; it is known, and the reason for the use of dogs as guards & for personal protection. Dogs are also known to read their owners emotional distress, and assess what or who is causing the distress, then do something about the distress to help their owners. This is exactly why ESDs are used, but while extremely helpful & useful, to the dog’s owner, this behavior, when untrained, can be extremely dangerous to everyone who is not the dog’s owner. This danger is amplified when people around the dog are scared, or wary, of the dog, and further amplified if the owner is emotionally unstable.
This brings me to dog breeds; some are more dangerous than others, and some are less apt for the task/job of being an ESA. Therefore, if dog breeds that are dangerous or inept for the tasks of an ESD are not trained, and their owners are likely to be emotionally unstable: such ESDs, while essential to their owner, are a danger to everyone else.
Furthermore, it is hypocritical to expect the people around such ESDs to suffer emotional distress, as a result of the threatening ESD, for the sake of the ESD’s owner.
Thank you for reading my rant.
TLDR: Some dog breeds, if not all dogs, should be required to pass the same qualifications as a Service Dog in order to be registered & certified as Emotional Support Animals.
Fully agree.
At least the US no longer considers ESAs in a similar light to service dogs now, apparently people were abusing that to take animals into places they really shouldn’t be, and to waive paying for their pets on flights (as well as have their pets beside them on the flight, rather than sit in a cage in the cargo hold)
My slightly related unpopular take would be, people should NOT touch or otherwise distract someone else’s trained service dog. Real service dogs fulfill a necessary role for their owner, whose condition may require the dog’s full attention to look for warning signs - such as e.g. imminent fainting, blindness, imminent panic attack etc, and even seek help for the owner if needed. There are a bunch of medical situations where an individual may not able to maintain control of themselves for a brief period of time
I’ve encountered service dogs, and they either wear something that says to not interact with them, or their owner will tell people not to.
There’s service dogs for people with autism and part of their job might be to facilitate social interaction. So they might be given permission to get pet and socialize.