The Idiots Guide
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Most of us were taught how to read, write, and math good.
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The Idiots Guide
Beyond Companionship: The Difference Between Service Animals and Emotional Support Animals EP58 TIG
Ever wondered what sets service animals apart from emotional support animals? Join us and get clarity on their distinct roles and the impressive tasks service animals can accomplish. Together with my co-host Joe Haslam, we promise you'll gain the knowledge to engage with these remarkable animals respectfully and effectively. Through real-life stories and insights from organizations like Canines with a Cause and the Malinois Foundation, learn how these animals transform lives, especially for veterans and individuals with PTSD.
Explore the complexity behind training service animals, from detecting allergens to calling emergency services. Hear about the intelligence of miniature ponies and dogs trained in rigorous programs that rival the intensity of a college degree. Discover tales of heroism, like that of Sterling the golden retriever, and tips for identifying potential service animals early in their development. We'll navigate the nuanced world of emotional support animals as well, highlighting their ability to alleviate stress and emotional distress.
Understand the vital distinction between service animals and emotional support animals, and the etiquette necessary when interacting with them. We discuss the legal landscape and societal roles these animals play, emphasizing the need for respect and awareness in everyday encounters. With personal stories, including experiences of living with autism, we underscore the importance of these companions in supporting those with disabilities and emotional challenges. Tune in to enrich your understanding and appreciation of these incredible animals and their essential contributions.
https://themalinoisfoundation.org/
https://canine.org/ (Canine Companions)
Today on the Idiot's Guide. Have you ever wondered if your dog is judging you for the fifth snack that you've had today? He probably is, I'm sure, but only a service animal would know not to tell. Today, what we're doing is we're talking about the rise of service animals and emotional support animals, or ESAs, in public awareness. It's super important to understand their roles and how to respectfully interact with them. Hopefully, by the end of the episode, you'll know the difference between a service dog and your aunt's overdressed chihuahua, plus how to avoid making awkward mistakes around these amazing animals.
Speaker 1:I'm your host, adam Richardson, aka the Profit Hacker, and I'm joined by the man in charge, mr Joe Haslam. Welcome to the Idiot's Guide. So there is this, I guess, kind of common thought where I think in our society, one of the things that I've recognized mainly because I have a service animal and, across the board, most people that I interact with or that interact with my dog is the idea of like what determines a service animal? Like what is a service animal versus, as well, what is an emotional support animal, and we'll dive into that here in just a little bit, but right now I want to focus on service animals and kind of what is the definition of that? A lot of people like when? The interaction of this is how do you identify one? Obviously, most of the time, you're going to see a vest, okay Right, and it's going to say, uh, something about not petting. You know something about the fact that it is a service dog?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a working or something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, working dog and, and it'll say do not pet. Sometimes it'll say do not pet, and it's super important to recognize those signs. It's like, you know, if I was to say if somebody were walking around with their oxygen tank and you went over and adjusted the knobs, you know that is potentially life-threatening. Yeah, okay, but it is the same thing.
Speaker 1:A service animal is a piece of medical equipment that has been provided for an individual for their needs. Yeah, and you know it basically, like the definition of an a of a service animal, according to the americans with disabilities actor ada is typically their dogs, although sometimes there's a miniature pony involved. I don't know, but trained to perform specific tasks, uh, for a person, uh, with a disability. And some examples open doors, turn on lights, um, I, you know, being a seeing eye dog, for you know, guiding a blind person, alerting, blow low blood sugar or calming someone's PTSD during a panic attack, Um, and also, you know, like I would say, epileptic, like seizures, those sorts of things, early, early indicators for for individuals who who need to have that so that they can alert.
Speaker 1:Outside of that, generally speaking that's. I mean there are so many other things that that would merit a service animal as a trained animal for that. But yeah, like that's ultimately what we you know what you would define according to America's Disabilities Act would define as a service animal. But, joe, do you have any input? As far as you know, what is a service animal?
Speaker 2:So service animals are intensely trained.
Speaker 1:So training programs for service animals are anywhere from 6 to 18 months of training, I would say almost generally, two years First, two years of their life.
Speaker 2:Exactly so it depends on. So there are some programs, uh, that will do so if you get a service animal that has been trained uh external to your environment. So this is there. There are programs that they specifically train uh service animals. So there's there's a company called canine Companions we're going to put some of these links in the description.
Speaker 2:But Canine Companions trains service animals but they don't train them with the individual and so it's a more intensive training because they have to be able to adapt to any individual. There are other programs where they will train. The trainers will come and they will train with you in your home, and so the training is more specific to the individual. So those can go a little bit faster and generally you're going to get the animals a little bit younger. But because it's in the environment, working specifically with the individual and the individual specific needs, it's less broad of training and so it's usually more costly but more specific, and so it's less time.
Speaker 2:But yeah, it is extremely intensive. You think about how long it takes to get a college degree. That's what we're talking about with these animals. They are getting a degree in being service animals and it is very, very involved, very intensive, to be able to support people with all these needs. There are dogs that are trained. I mean they can smell a peanut, a trace of a peanut that is in their owner's meal, and they can alert their owner that there's danger there yeah it's these.
Speaker 2:These animals are so thoroughly well trained and that's one of the reasons why they do miniature ponies. It's sometimes a joke, uh, but miniature ponies I mean horses are extremely smart, but they're huge, yeah. And so you've got the miniature pony, because they've got the similar intelligence to a full-on horse, but they're able to live in an environment that a dog normally would.
Speaker 1:I would totally, you know, like if I was blind I would have a pony, because then I could ride it.
Speaker 2:You can't ride a pony.
Speaker 1:They don't have the strength to be able to ride a dog, all right, then I need a seeing-eye horse.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I mean they don't have the strength, all right, then I need a seeing eye horse, um, but yeah, I mean these animals are specifically trained. I mean they can be trained to call uh 9-1-1. Uh, some people uh that have uh serious issues uh with um. You know, generally ptsd dogs don't have this kind of training but, but if it's like a medical emergency where it's diabetes or epilepsy or anything like that, they'll have a special phone or a button on that phone that the dog can then go and hit that button and they know to do this. It is insane the level of training that these service animals go through.
Speaker 1:And there's a ton of schools my, my animal went through canines with a cause which is veteran organization for military service members who you know, come, come to a need and they actually go. Oftentimes they will find an animal at the shelter, um young, and then they will. They will start the preliminary training and then they will pair them with a veteran that needs it and then the rest of the training is with that veteran. So they go through all of the all of the certification courses for for that animal, um within the with with the veteran, uh side by side, and so a lot of the training. What's interesting in that case is you're training the veteran, not the dog.
Speaker 2:The dog is super smart and to add to that, not all animals are capable of being service animals. There are a lot of washouts in these programs because it takes a specific type of again, mostly dogs. It takes a specific type of dog to be able to actually function in that role. And so there's an organization that we were working with for one of my daughters who has severe PTSD from her upbringing, and it's called the Malinois Foundation and they work with you to be able to work with local trainers who will come and before you even get the animals, they will work with the dog or whatever animal you're working with and make sure, before you even acquire it, that it is going to go through the program so they will find the puppy, make sure it's actually got the right personality, make sure it's got the right intelligence, all those things, so that it's actually going to be a sufficient animal.
Speaker 1:I had a when I went in pursuit of finding my animal. You know, like I they, like I said they would normally like pair you with someone or match you with one, but I decided I would go out and find one because I had gotten a little bit of feedback from a couple. There's South Healing Hounds is one that I know of. These are very veteran-specific Labs for Liberty. They work with special forces individuals and things like that, like special forces individuals and things like that. But the the coaching that I was told about was to I to to help identify like a puppy is to go up and basically just like go up and and and just smother the puppy, like give it lots of loves and then take it, flip it on its back and hold it with your hand like this. If it just kind of goes like cool belly rubs, you know you've got a good, you got a good one, okay. But if it like squirms and starts panicking because it's upside down and up in the air, like most animals, that's going to be. But you're going to have like with that case they, they would freak out. Most animals would because of that. But a good service animal at that young of an age to find that at weeks old, if you turn them upside down and they're like sweet, this is the closest to my belly, you can get. You know you're like great dog, you know they're. They're even keel emotionally. They should, they should show great training ability in that Now, that's not a guarantee, but that was one of the things that they said. Like here's a good hack to like identify if you're out looking to find an animal that might be, you know, better or easier to train into this. But you know, on the flip side, we have a chihuahua at home that is absolutely terrified of everything and barks at the window. You know, like on the back of the couch, it looks out the window. And you know there's a mailman across the street in the cul-de-sac and it's like I'm going to tell it that I am the authority here and I'm like what are you? And if I come home and I'm freaking out for some reason, that dog is gone, like a dog disappears because it's tiny and not a service animal. Yeah, so you know, an example of this is one.
Speaker 1:This is a real-life story of Sterling. It's a golden retriever and Sterling is a response intervention animal for an individual. This service dog basically saved its owner's life while they were out on a camping trip. Saved its owner's life while they were out on a camping trip. And during the camping trip, um it Sterling, went over to his owner and uh went over to the owner and uh woke him up while he was sleeping because, uh, the insulin pump alarm, usually like when the low blood sugar happened, um, the insulin pump would, would, would alarm, it would go on an alert, but it had the battery had died.
Speaker 1:So the dog recognized this, didn't, didn't hear the alert, and so went and proceeded to wake up the owner, uh to to alert them of low blood sugar, and like that's, that's crazy, cause we can't smell that, but they can, you know. So, even while you're sleeping, to think that that level of protection is there, uh, for that way to go, sterling, that's like such an amazing thing to think of service animals are just amazing what they're able to do, and it's, it's wild.
Speaker 1:Hey guys, if you're enjoying, uh, our content, what some of the stuff that we put out here, don't forget to smash that like button and um, and and hit the bell. That little bell helps you get reminded. Anytime we put out an episode. We pretty regularly are doing it every Friday, um, and also, if you know someone I don't know if you know someone who might need to hear this or another episode of ours, share it with them. Share that, share that content. Um, that helps others find our channel and enjoy all the random but intentional episodes we keep putting out. Um. So, thank you guys, smash that like button as soon as you can subscribe to our channel and, uh, check us out and spread the word. So let's talk a little bit more about emotional support animals ESAs. What are they and what aren't they? And it's, for the most part, emotional support animals. I think get this idea that you're just like, well, you know I, you're.
Speaker 2:I've got a pet. I want to take him on vacation, so I'm going to call him an emotional support animal. Yes, that is not an emotional support animal. I'm heading on a flight to Hawaii.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know. And an emotional support animal, in a quick definition, provides comfort and emotional support but aren't trained specifically for you know to to that degree that a service animal is.
Speaker 2:That's, that's, that's really kind of the main distinction is they're kind of a step down from a service animal, so someone who doesn't need that extra support, so like a veteran who suffers from a night terrors, but they have issues where get overwhelmed or they just need that extra support, but they don't need that extra level of intentional service. Yeah, you don't need an animal that can call the police or the ambulance when you're having an episode. You don't need an animal that does these extra things. But when you come home after a long day and you are overwhelmed, you're getting close to a panic attack. That's what the emotional support animal is for it's to provide that emotional support, less so the physical support that the service animals do.
Speaker 2:Now, service animals provide the emotional support as well, right, but with an emotional support animal you don't need that physical level. So it's just that step down where they're not trained to do all that physical stuff. But they're still so vital and they are not pets, or pets are not inherently emotional support animals. Service animals, emotional support animals. They are pets when they're not working, right, but when they're working they are working. Yeah, including an emotional support animal.
Speaker 1:I honestly can say that you know, with a service animal, when you put the vest on there on the clock, you know when you take the vest off, they, you know, know, they. They still are trained. Yeah, so they, they know what to do regardless of the vest. They're not like, well, you know I'm off the clock.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna go watch my bob shift right now, you know so you know, I'm gonna go watch my youtube videos heard the idiots guy, I've got a new episode out, so but but An emotional support animal, honestly, is one of those where it's like vest or not, is always attentive to those sorts of things, and so it's not whether or not they're on the clock.
Speaker 1:Like I said, service animal is neither that. But I've seen and heard lots of stories about service animals where they'll go, like if they're trained to be in a certain environment, like indoors. Indoors they will train to be right next to their owner, regardless if they have to go to the bathroom or not. And hours of it, yeah, hours and hours and hours, way beyond the extent of of a normal treatment of an animal, like don't do that if you can, right, but but but in those certain cases there have been stories that I've been, I learned about that. I'm like incredible, like holding, holding, going to the bathroom for like 16 hours to be let out so that they could go, and they're finally, like you know, it's good, but to think like that much control and emotional support animal not necessarily isn't trained to that capacity, right, and that's why there aren't as many protections for emotional support animals, because they're designed more for home.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:They are not trained for the outside world. They are somewhat trained for the home environment and so there are protections for ESAs federally protected, that you are allowed to have an emotional support animal in your home. So apartment complexes can't charge you extra for it. There are a lot of protections to make sure that you have that emotional support animal. They're no longer allowed on planes partly because people were taking advantage of it. They said, yeah, this snake that I have provides me emotional support. They said, yeah, this snake that I have provides me emotional support.
Speaker 2:Now my daughter does have an emotional support snake, but she is not taking it on vacation. That's just not going to happen. That snake provided her that because a snake will tighten and the snake recognized the issues and so when she's overly stressed, that snake will recognize it and will tighten around her, and so these animals are well attuned to what's going on. So my other daughter has an emotional support animal her cat and this cat is insanely well attuned to my daughter. So if she starts having issues, so she starts talking about hard things or she starts getting extra stressed, the cat will run from wherever it is in the home, will run to her, sit on her chest and start biting her chin or her nose, and that's to stop her from getting too emotionally heightened. And the cat's not trained to do this. There was no specific training, but we looked for an emotional support animal that was going to be able to be attuned Again like all service animals.
Speaker 1:Not all animals are going to be able to do it, and I think that's a thing that I've noticed is that ESAs have an ability to kind of naturally identify some of these things, and so you know, having a good animal and having a good friend in that moment is really like anybody. If your animal does this naturally, you could use the word. Esa is just or emotional support. Animal is the best way to like legally call it something Other than that it's your friend. It's your friend that cares a lot about you and is there to intervene when you need it, and they have that extra ability to do that above and beyond even some of your closest human friends. Yeah, Because they can hear it a mile away, smell it a mile away and come running and identify these things faster than any human can, Right these things faster than any human can, and that's such a great ability, generally speaking, for animals, unless you've got a really selfish cat or a selfish chihuahua that doesn't.
Speaker 2:And again going back to the idea of service animals, a lot of service animals wash out of the programs because they just don't have the capability. And when you're looking for a service animal, you're looking for that animal that has that attenuation to what's going on. That's what you look for With a service animal. It's the same thing. The only difference is that you are not training them to work in an outside environment, so they don't have the ability to do all those extra things that the service animals do. But they are not simply a pet Service animals don't just. You can't just call your pet a support animal simply because you like to pet it and you feel good after petting it. Everyone does. Support animals offer an extra level and are more attuned to the individual, and a lot of people have taken advantage of this support animal world of not having that.
Speaker 2:yeah, this is my support. Llama Tina, you fat lard, come get some dinner to game the system so they can take their animals wherever or get those protections and it's like no, all you're doing is hurting the people who actually need support animals. Like I said, my daughter, who has a support animal. We were also looking at getting her a service animal. Yeah, because she needs both you know it's it's you know.
Speaker 1:A good explanation is this If you have a goldfish, that when you go home and you want to de-stress after a long day, that goldfish is there for you but it can't really fetch your slippers, so it's not a service animal. That's really the distinction right there. Honestly, that's a really shallow distinction.
Speaker 2:Goldfish are not support animals or service.
Speaker 1:I don't know, you know like, if you, if you emotionally feel better because you've attached your emotional bond to a goldfish, you have no right to take that away from somebody. Joe.
Speaker 2:It's about the goldfish's ability to support you, hey it notices how many bubbles it pops out.
Speaker 1:Like you know, it depends on how stressed I am. Like, if there's five, I'm pretty stressed, you know. If it's just one, I'm okay for the day.
Speaker 2:You know, and like all right, if you can trade a goldfish to do that great, you could call it a support animal.
Speaker 1:I think that's a big distinction, though, is most ESAs are not specifically trained. Yeah, they have an intuition about it and that's why they are ESAs rather than them being service animals. Right Is, service animals are very. They walk through drills and routines in order to equip them with the right kind of things to do in all the needs of that individual, and ESA intuitively develops these responses. Yep, there's not a time they may learn better, because when they respond, they identify that they get praise following that. So they're like oh okay, so when I sense this, I come to this and I get attention. So, at the basic sense of how an animal develops their bond with an individual or develops their learning, that's dog training 101. Right, you do something, you get a reward.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but a pet has neither of those, right? I mean a pet may be nice, yeah, right, I mean a pet may be nice, yeah, but if it, like your chihuahua, runs away at the slightest sound, there's no way, it's going to be an emotional support animal or service when she wants food yeah, that's a bit different.
Speaker 1:She comes what and she comes, comes into the. She's like a little sausage. So she's like the sausage comes running into the kitchen when I'm slicing an apple, because she loves apples yeah, she hears that cutting board and that knife, and she's like the sausage comes running into the kitchen when I'm slicing an apple because she loves apples.
Speaker 2:She hears that cutting board and that knife and she's like all right, I'm on my way and so it's important to understand what a service animal is, what a support animal is and what a pet is.
Speaker 1:Ultimately, service animal has access to more public spaces like airplanes and restaurants Right. More public spaces like airplanes and restaurants Right Um a emotional support animal. They're just as important but don't have the same legal level or right as a service animal does.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's more for the home. The protections are in the environment of the home, where a support animal does its best work because they're not trained for external.
Speaker 1:So even though your iguana gives great hugs, it's not allowed on the plane, right? Yep, all right, guys. So I want to mention we've we've kind of been bringing this up and I felt like we'll we'll stay in this lane for the next little bit because of what we're talking about, some of these, um, you know, mental health, awareness, uh, topics that we're talking about. But we have something called NeuroWarriorco and NeuroWarriorco essentially is a program that empowers individuals to work through a form of meditation that is not just actually it's not that at all, um, but through breathing techniques and mental, sometimes visualization, um, and different levels, to be able to, uh, even address particular, you know strengths and weaknesses about yourself mentally, saying anger issues or happiness, and identifying ways about having, you know, better ability to control some of those emotions and better emotional controls uh, all around.
Speaker 1:Now, is it a fix all? Does it fix everything? Does it work entirely? I would say it's a supplement to, to traditional care if there is a need for some kind of psychotherapy or anything like that, but if you're just looking for a way to have better response when you have a stressful moment and know how to decompress, it's an awesome approach to really kind of enhance all around your mental awareness about yourself. I should take that advice and do that about yourself. I should take that advice and do that?
Speaker 2:Do you have any more input about neurowarriorco? It's just a neurocognitive training program where it helps you to remap the existing neural pathways. I know this is the boring scientific part, so the editors probably kind of put someone falling asleep.
Speaker 1:I just speed it up, there you go.
Speaker 2:But it helps to remap the neural pathways, all those things that have developed over a long lifetime of interactions with people, and it helps you to remap all those to something that you want, as opposed to what's developed over the years of really bad interactions.
Speaker 1:So how do you interact with service animals, how do you interact with emotional support animals? Because I think that this is something that our our culture. You know, sometimes we'll abide by the, the signs, but then you have a mom with her three-year-old that doesn't read and goes doggy and just walks up and hugs it. You know, and and and it's. The idea about this is like you know it's those signs are there for a reason, it's. You know that no petting or feeding or otherwise distracting a service animal is super important because, like I said, if you walked up to somebody's oxygen tank and started playing with the dials, you're going to make a lot of people angry really fast. Yeah, you might even have to. You know the police officers and the ambulance.
Speaker 2:You know like.
Speaker 1:EMS when they show up. You're going to have to explain yourself, right, you know. So it's really just the same in the sense of working with a service animal. Even though you know a lot of people, I think, don't tend to make the distinction between a pet and a service animal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean you may not realize. It's easy, generally easy to tell if someone has a service animal and they're blind, so seeing eye dog, pretty easy to tell that this is a service animal and a lot of people will show respect for that. But it's the conditions that are not as physically apparent that people think, oh, it's just wearing a cute vest. No, this animal is helping to prevent this individual from having an anxiety and a panic attack at the mall.
Speaker 1:If you imagine.
Speaker 1:Yeah like standing at a parade, your you know, like all of these different things that your body is doing, putting off smell around a thousand other people, and you're going, how does this dog like so tune into me? You know to to recognize this in that kind of a scenario and that's, you know, like attuned to the fact of saying like, if you were right in the middle of, you know, diffusing a bomb, Okay, All the intricate wires, the wrong wire could be catastrophic, Okay. So it's super important to pay very specific attention to all the details. It's not the time to carry on a conversation or go up for a hug.
Speaker 2:That's when you don't want a little three-year-old kid coming up behind you and go hey Mr, hey Mr, hey, mr, hey, mister, because that's what they're doing when they're trying to pet or pester a dog. That's actually working as a service animal Because it is distracting for a dog. They're still a living being. They're not perfect, just like we aren't to be able to get rid of those distractions, and so you don't want to interrupt these animals because they are doing some very serious and very hard work. I mean, it is not easy to be attuned to someone going through a lot of issues like that.
Speaker 2:So, me being autistic, there are service animals that are trained for people who are autistic, because it's very difficult being in large environments, so the autistic brain doesn't filter anything out. So imagine listening to 20 concerts of 20 different musical numbers all coming into your brain at the exact same time. It is extremely stressful and these service animals are trained to be able to recognize that and realize okay, he's getting overly stressed, we need to get out of here. Or a veteran suffering from a panic attack, or a moment where suddenly they're having a flashback to where they were. These dogs have to be attuned to the smallest details, something that we as humans would never be able to perceive, and they have to, like that, be able to recognize there's something wrong here and act.
Speaker 1:And if you're walking up to them and distracting them and doing something that is very, very potentially harmful, but I think, recognizing also the fact that ESAs or emotional support animals are, though not as specifically trained they might not be, you know, you know specifically attuned to that they are responding the same way, they are recognizing the same issues. So, you know, for an emotional support animal, treating them in that same capacity, about interacting, you know, asking permission, like you can see often the difference between a service animal and an emotional support animal If you were to put them vests. Exactly the same, same, exact breed, looks almost like they're related, probably are somewhere, but but they sit right next to each other and one is trained as a service animal and one is trained as an esa. Oftentimes you'll be able to see the esa, they, they, they have a demeanor about them that is a little more toddler, like I guess yeah, they're just less trained right, there's a little less control about their, their everything right, okay?
Speaker 1:um, because, especially service animals they are trained specifically to be you stay in one spot until you were told otherwise. Yep, you know, and so like, and not in a bad way, that's just part of that, that thing that's what, that's the needs of the individual they're working with and so an esa might, might not be trained, definitely probably isn't trained that way. So you're going to see some of those little mannerisms that make that distinct, distinctly different, but that doesn't mean that they are not as important.
Speaker 2:Not, you know, should should merit a, you know, uh, a furry, uh, uh, a furry, furry petting like yeah, right, here we go, Hugs, you know imagine if you're in a home where you're visiting someone and, like my daughter's case, where, if she gets uh, overly stressed, the cat would need to go over there and sit on her chest and bite her chin.
Speaker 2:That is what this cat does to regulate my daughter when she gets overly stressed. If you're holding onto that cat, if you're visiting the home and you're holding onto that cat and the cat's squirming and you're like, no, I want to pet you, I want to hold you, you are preventing that cat from being able to do its job. And that's where those boundaries are important. That it's that you have to allow these animals to do what they need to do. Now, emotional support animals are less trained, so it's a lot harder to recognize a support animal versus a service animal. But they need to have the same kinds of boundaries and you need to recognize that this animal has a job to do and let it do its job has a job to do, yeah, and let it do its job Well and, and you know, put, put yourself in their shoes.
Speaker 1:Imagine if you're, you know, heading into work or maybe heading into school and you know the whole time you're trying to do your classwork or you're you're trying to do your, you know, do your job. You are getting hugs from all your friends and everybody that came by. It doesn't even matter if they're friends, they're just coming up and hugging you Like one, that's extremely weird, but two and uncomfortable, but but. But it's one of those things where, like that's exhausting just getting hugged by everybody. You're like, okay, all right, hold on, I haven't finished that sentence, but, okay, you know, I'm like, yeah, you're like, golly, leave me alone. It's that level of distraction that you're like. If you can just consider the fact that an ESA has a job as well, then it makes it a whole lot easier to just include them in that respect that you would give a service animal and just be aware that they matter too. Esa's lives matter.
Speaker 2:I think a good distinction here is, if you think about it in, uh, the field of uh, something like lawyers. So you have a lawyer who has gone through years and years and years of school and has passed the bar, and so they are well-trained to be a lawyer, yeah, but then below them you have paralegals well-trained to be a lawyer, but then below them you have paralegals. Paralegals have not gone through all of the years of school, they haven't passed the bar, but they are trained in the legal atmosphere and so they can assist in the work of legal needs Not to the degree of a lawyer legal needs Not to the degree of a lawyer, but still capable versus someone who is practicing law out of the back of their pickup.
Speaker 1:What do they call it? Cracker Jack lawyer or whatever?
Speaker 2:it is Someone who is pretending to be a lawyer but is actually not, and is going to get you in a lot worse. You get your degree out of a Cracker Jack box, and so that's where I mean you're looking at these. That's the distinction between pet support animal and service.
Speaker 1:For those listening that are too young to understand what a cracker jack is, it's a treat from the uh 90s and earlier than the way, way earlier than that from like, but uh but we're, we're both 80s and 90s kids, so, uh, but for the, for the younger generation, yes, it used to be a snack.
Speaker 1:I think they're still around, but you know they're very not known. But I think an important point to make about service animals and ESAs is respecting their role, both their roles as important, and you know that they both play a very significant role in in their owner's life, and you know. So, treating them with respect, um, even even if they're adorable, even if they're like absolutely the cutest thing, and you're like let me, let me get this, this, this dog pasted all over social media, like let the owner do that if they want to do that, but but for you, respect the fact that that dog has a job and that owner is utilizing that person for support and help, or that that animal for support and help, and allow that to be that the priority. Uh, and just respect the owner in that sense.
Speaker 1:Um, I guess like three takeaways for for today is, um, you know, service animals, they're highly trained and you know, for for really crucial and specific tasks, esas provide emotional support but don't have the same necessarily legal status or or specific elite training that a service animal does, yet they are still a crucial ingredient in their owner's life and respectful interaction is key. That's probably the biggest thing is, just don't distract or overwhelm them, because they're an adorable animal, whether that's a dog, a cat, a fish, whether that's a dog, a cat, a fish, an iguana, a snake, a pony, you know, all of which have an important role in that person's life, and more so, not just respecting the animal, but you're respecting the owner and why they need that in their lives. So next time you see a service animal in public, you know, resist the urge to tell them, oh, good boy, unless you know they've, maybe they've, they've helped you go get to the nearest coffee shop and then, well, I'm grateful for that. So you know, then I'll be like, yes, good boy, there you go, there you go.
Speaker 1:Um, I don't know like anything else you want to add at the end of that, or do?
Speaker 2:you think we covered? No, I think we covered that pretty well, I think you know. Uh, I wish that more people would recognize esas as what they are um, and and and not take advantage of, uh, the the lack of legislation on that, because that just hurts people who actually need ESAs.
Speaker 1:Yeah, don't ruin the party for everyone because you feel like your llama should be on a plane. Right, I'm going to see if I can find a llama on a plane. I'm sure it's happened. It's definitely there. But you know, yes, there are differences. Um, I I would encourage if, if this episode has been helpful, um, to you, or if you think that it might be helpful for somebody else. This is kind of a place that maybe we've we've covered enough grounds to kind of understand that this is a place to come back to for a refresher, to know the difference between service animals and ESAs, you know, and and to help give you some pointers about, uh, um, being an advocate for both of those, and or hearing some really bad jokes. Um, how do flat earthers travel? I don't know. How do they on a plane?
Speaker 2:That was terrible. That is a really really bad deep joke. All right, that joke hit me, I've got a better one. Okay, what is the best time on a clock?
Speaker 1:Oh man Uh.
Speaker 2:I don't know, 630 hands down 6.30, hands down.
Speaker 1:I like that. Well, we have reached the end of the show. That was terrible. We have reached the end of our show for today. Thank you for listening. Thank you for watching. Hit that subscribe, hit that like button. Hit that little bell so you get the reminders. Life's too short, so keep laughing and keep learning and remember. Idiots have way more fun. Check your shoes.