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Originally Posted by PHXFlyer
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I was boarding a flight once and saw a woman playing with a dog in the gate area. When it came time to board, she took a yellow "vest" out of her carry-on that said "service animal" (it almost looked home-made!) and placed it on the dog. I asked the gate agent, who I have known from taking many flights, what the deal was. He told me that most anyone can go to a vet and get a certificate for their pet to become an "emotional support" service animal. I told him that my observation was that this dog did not appear to have any training consistent with a service animal. I know from working with blind persons in the past that their dogs were highly trained and well behaved. This dog was all over the place and didn't even respond to the most basic commands. He told me he sees it more and more and that they have problems all the time with these so-called service animals disrupting other passengers and relieving themselves both in the airport and on the aircraft.
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The emotional support animal issue is a very tricky one. There are some passengers who actually need these animals to function and there are probably just as many who claim the family dog is actually a service animal in order to avoid additional fees.
The Department has released a guidance document for carriers on how to handle this issue. (available at
http://airconsumer.ost.dot.gov/guidance.htm). Just saying "my dog is my service animal" may not be sufficient to allow the dog (or other animal) to travel as a service animal. The carrier can go as far as asking for documentation from the passenger's physician, not the dog's vet.