My dad was recommended a comfort animal. My father has never heard of these “comfort animals” and started doing research at home. He ended up getting our whole family hooked on the idea that he wanted one. We saw a specialist on the comfort animal subject and was told dad didn’t need one.  The only issue with my father was that he has high blood pressure. That got me thinking about how easily some people could put in a claim for one of these animals when not needed.  Also, I’ve wondered what happens if your comfort animal goes crazy and if people are allowed to take them everywhere or just to certain places.

To acquire a comfort animal,  you must fill out a form on various websites to get a comfort animal “licence.” This way when the owner goes into a public place they show their comfort animal licence and their disability form to whomever they need to.  The last couple of years the issue of people faking that they need emotional animals is getting worse. The way people have been using them is wrong. Say Timmy wants to take his dog to a restaurant with him, he can just walk in with the animal.  If anyone has a issue with the animal, then he can just call the animal a service dog. The more formal places , like airports, are cracking down on this kind of stuff. In order to bring a comfort animal on a plane, there must be a disability form and a licence for the comfort animal present according to USA Today on January 16th 2016.

If you have a comfort animal and it goes crazy,  you may be sued based on the damage done. Most of the time when a comfort animal goes crazy or bites someone, it’s because the animal isn’t a true comfort animal. This is another reason why it should be harder for the common person to get their hands on one of these animals.  According to an article by CNN on March 2017, nineteen states so far have implemented laws to crack down on people who fake that they need a comfort animal. Comfort animals and its owner can be kicked out of places. Service animals on the other hand, can go anywhere that the owner can. Service animals are a tax deductible medical expense put in by the IRS, according to healthypets.com. Should comfort animals get the same treatment as the service animals? I believe at this stage they should not. Service animals are trained before they go to their owners and most comfort animals are not. I believe all comfort animals should be trained before sent to their owners, just like service animals.

Now  my dad wants another dog, because he was turned down on his request of our dog being a comfort animal. Then again, he could just take our dog anywhere he wants and just call him a comfort animal. The biggest issue with that is if our dog was to get out of line. We would be facing charges for whatever our dog did and for faking that my father needed a comfort animal. The fine would be no more than $500 if my dog was actually a comfort animal, but since he isn’t the charges would be well over $500!  This is all if he was even allowed into the place he wanted to go without giving the workers his disability form and comfort animal license.  Now you have the doggy down on comfort animals!