Emotional support animals an animal welfare risk?

[Catherine]

Quote:People who try to pass their emotional support pets (even regular pets) as service pets make it very dangerous for the real service dogs. I've seen so many incidents where a service dog was attacked by someone else's "service dog" only to find out that it was actually an emotional support dog or just someone's dog that wanted to take to the mall. It's a huge public risk.

You are absolutely right. Service dogs are trained. People just randomly declare something to be an emotional support animal and suddenly they think it is entitled to everything a service dog is entitled to. It is becoming a real problem. People are claiming peacocks and hamsters and anything else possible to be emotional support animals. I am sure there is someone out there claiming their goldfish as an emotional support animal. 

You hate to think of yet more regulations, but something needs to be done.
I hate to think of a hard working service dog being injured by a pretend service animal.