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SoylentNews is people

posted by janrinok on Thursday November 17 2016, @04:23AM   Printer-friendly
from the my-emotional-support-is-a-lion dept.

The young, perfectly healthy looking guy ahead of me in Panera Bread walked his fifty lb. dog to the front of the line - I can't tell you the breed since I don't know dogs - and was immediately told that the dog had to go. "Um, I have an anxiety disorder", he replied. The cashier turned around to consult with the manager, but people were still waiting to order, and soon it was conceded that the customer and his service dog/best friend could stay for lunch. And they did.

The Chicago Tribune reports that similar incidents are cropping up on airlines. Passengers dread having their pets locked up in a kennel in the cargo section, and airlines charge hefty fees for the service, so some of them are taking advantage of a legal loophole allowing service dogs of disabled people to ride in the passenger cabin free of charge; but in these cases the disability is "emotional distress" rather than, say, blindness. Many of these passengers pay a licensed therapist for the certificate of need required by airline gate attendants, and for an expensive vest for their "service animals".

From the Tribune story:

"It's definitely gotten carried away to the point where people are taking advantage of the system," [Atlanta flight attendant] Williams said. "It's hard when someone is following protocol and they're not allowed to take the animal out of the cage, but others use the loophole to have an animal sit on their lap."

The story mentions that some fellow passengers and advocates for the (real) disabled are annoyed with the game-playing and lax enforcement. However, others perhaps side with the late Harry Nilsson, who famously sang "I'd take my puppy everywhere, la-la-la I wouldn't care. We'll stay away from crowds, signs that said 'No friends allowed'".


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 17 2016, @05:36AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 17 2016, @05:36AM (#427967)

    Many soylent posters have such dogs, supporting their confidence and helping them be incurious.

  • (Score: 2, Funny) by aristarchus on Thursday November 17 2016, @05:53AM

    by aristarchus (2645) on Thursday November 17 2016, @05:53AM (#427971) Journal

    This explains so much! Thank you, AC! I will report this immediately to the Amalgamated Union of Philosophers, Sages, Luminaries, and other professional thinking persons. (For those Soylentils with the aforementioned dogs, this is a very subtle reference to Douglas Adam's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which I recommend you read, even though the movie version was not exactly Vogon poetry, although it did include Vogon poetry. )