When I first heard about emotional support animals, I thought it was a fabulous idea. I’d seen research that said elderly people live longer and have a better quality of life when they have a pet. Being a pet owner myself, I know the love and joy that a pet can bring to our lives.
So, it seemed a no brainer that someone with mental health issues could greatly benefit from the love of a pet. If any client of mine requested a letter to make it easier to house their pet, I would gladly comply.
Since then, I have come to reconsider. Before I get into why, let me clarify what I’m talking about.
What is an Emotional Support Animal?
A “emotional support animal” is usually a cat or dog, but can be any animal, that is prescribed by a mental health professional to help alleviate psychological symptoms of their client. So, in order for Fido, who has been your side kick since high school, to be your emotional support animal, you have to have a mental health diagnosis and a provider who is willing to say that his presence would help with those symptoms.
In other words, you can’t arbitrarily decide that your pet is an emotional support animal because he helps you feel good.
Further, emotional support animals are NOT the same as therapy animals. Emotional support animals have no training and aren’t protected by the American Disabilities Act.
Therapy animals are specifically trained to do a task that helps someone function better. For example, seeing eye dogs help visually impaired people walk around safely. Diabetic alert dogs alert their owner of low or high blood sugar before it becomes dangerous.
What Changed My Mind About Emotional Support Animals
Clearly therapy animals do make positive changes in the lives of the people they serve, but do emotional support animals?
I don’t typically go to the pet store because I get my pet supplies from a feed and seed store. My dogs are livestock guardian dogs. They are working dogs, not pets. And a pet store has a very different clientele than a feed store.
But, for whatever reason, I was in a pet store recently and was shocked by the rows and rows of hemp products for calming dogs down. Hemp chews, hemp oil, and calming collars.
What was going on? Why do we need all these supplements for nervous dogs? And why are some veterinarians even prescribing Xanax for dogs?
That’s when it clicked! This isn’t about the dogs. This is about the owners!
When two people occupy the same space, they co-regulate. This means that they each contribute to the energy between them, and the one with the stronger vibration will either pull the other one up or down.
We don’t try to do this. It’s normal and natural. We vibe together. And dogs and cats do too.
What this suggests to me is that we didn’t suddenly get a surge in calming products for pets because of marketing. We are here because adults can’t regulate their own emotions and they are relying on their animals to do it for them!
While this may be helpful for the person, it’s not helpful to the pet! A pet isn’t an inanimate object to be used. It’s a living, breathing being that deserves a high quality of life.
It deserves love and care, and if being an emotional support animal results in them shaking, crying, becoming aggressive, or being unable to control their bowels, it’s too high a price to pay. I’d go further and even say that it’s abusive.
For too long we have made children the scapegoat for parents who can’t regulate their emotions. We make the child the focus on the problem and point out their lack of attention, aggression, and misbehavior. It’s not the kids.
They are absorbing the energy of the household and doing their best to handle a situation that is way beyond their abilities. And now we’re asking cats and dogs to do the same. And this has got to stop.
While I am certainly not saying that all people with emotional support animals are harming their pets, I am no longer going to use my mental health license to facilitate this practice.
As adults, it’s our responsibility to take care of ourselves, not our children’s, not our pet’s. And while I realize this is easier said than done, particularly when there is a trauma background, our being hurt cannot give us an excuse to harm others.
Animals cannot speak up and protect themselves, but I can. Not supporting emotional support animals is my small contribution to animal welfare. No animal should have to take a hemp chew to survive as a member of a household.