Today, Explained - When dogs fly

Episode Date: November 21, 2018

Airlines are getting tough on emotional support animals. Some people think they're a scam. Science isn’t sure. An expert weighs in, as does an emotional support dog. Learn more about your ad choices.... Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Something like 50 million Americans will travel somewhere this Thanksgiving. Airports are going to be full of all kinds of people and three kinds of animals. You're going to see people that bring their personal pets on there. In other words, they're going to basically pay the airline to say, you know, I want to bring my pet dog down to Florida with me. And, you know, it's all good. Hal Herzog studies how humans and animals interact at Western Carolina University. The second type you're going to see are animals that are service animals. And these are trained specifically to do a specific function.
Starting point is 00:00:39 And they are not pets. They do have legal status under the Americans with Disabilities Act. The third type of animal is the most controversial, and that's emotional support animals. And these also have legal status under the Air Carrier Access Act, but they don't have to be trained, and they are allowed to be personal pets. And that's where the wrinkle comes in right there. Using emotional service animals when you fly seems to be a growing trend.
Starting point is 00:01:17 Yeah, and now there's new concern that people are faking the need for the animals. Delta Airlines on Friday, tightening the leash on passengers who want to fly with their pets. JetBlue is tightening its policy on emotional support animals. Passengers will have to fill out three documents to fly with the animals. Thousands, and I mean thousands of animals, board their airlines each and every year.
Starting point is 00:01:37 Turkeys, possums, and snakes on planes. It's a scam. Everyone knows it's a scam. Airlines are already making decisions to change the rules around these things. But now legislators want to go one step further because they can do a whole lot more about it. In a very real sense, my safety, my life is in the paws of my dog. So let's talk more about the wrinkle because I feel like everyone pretty much understands the first two. What exactly is an emotional support animal? Okay, here's where the wrinkle comes in.
Starting point is 00:02:12 The American Veterinary Medical Hospital Association did a survey a number of years ago. Forty percent of women in that survey said that they got more emotional support from their dog than they did their husband or their kids. That I believe. So if you ask people, you know, does your pet provide you with emotional support? Most people would say yes. I would say yes. My cat provides me some emotional support.
Starting point is 00:02:38 When my wife's gone, I'm sort of lonely around the house, you know, and I pet her. It's all good. Yeah. However, that doesn't give my cat legal status. What gives my cat legal status is the legal category under the Air Carrier Access Act. Here basically are the regulations that apply. First of all, and this is one of the problems right here, is it can be any species. A service animal can basically only be a dog, but it can be any species. So you're allowed to bring your duck or your gerbil or your dog on the plane.
Starting point is 00:03:08 Your gecko, your snake. Absolutely. And people have done that. Secondly, you've got to have a psychiatric disorder. It's got to be a psychiatric disorder, which is recognized by the American Psychiatric Association. Third, you need to have a letter from your physician or a licensed mental health professional that you're supposed to be under treatment for, saying that you need the animal, the presence of the animal, to allow you to get on the plane or allow you, and also in this case, would be, let's say, bring your pet into a no-pets apartment. What are some of the recent highlights of people bringing on comfort animals onto planes?
Starting point is 00:03:46 Well, two recent highlights involved birds. One of them was actually a friend of mine whose photographs went viral. He was on a plane flying into Asheville. La, la, la, la. And there was an emotional support duck walking up and down the aisle of the plane. That sounds amazing. Wearing a diaper. And it turned out that it was the emotional support duck from a woman who had PTSD. And he took photographs of it. And this
Starting point is 00:04:11 went viral. Passengers seemed delighted when they spotted a duck occupying a window seat on a flight from Charlotte to Asheville, North Carolina. As I recall, it had little slippers on its feet, too. What was its name? Oh, gosh. You know, I forgot. I was afraid you would ask me that, and I do not remember. You can look it up, you know. Daniel Turducken Stinkerbutt. Daniel the Duck. Okay. Well, you can see the pictures of Daniel. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:04:36 Oh, my God. It's got, like, red flippers on. Yeah, I told you that. Oh, man. If this duck was on my plane, it'd be the best flight ever. I love you. Without Daniel, I would stay home for the rest of my life. I would never leave the house because I can't. However, it's not always good. Sure. Sorry. What was your second story? I missed that one. Oh, well, that was another thing that went viral. A photograph of a woman that tried to get her full-tailed male peacock on a plane and then had
Starting point is 00:05:06 a big to-do with the airlines when they wouldn't let the peacock on. I'm not kidding, this woman is wrangling her peacock into the airport. Right now, wrangling a peacock in the airport. It's emotional support. Yep. What the hell, New York? My niece was recently on a plane where the plane actually had to turn back and land because of a dog that was running up in the aisle and disrupting everything. These incidents have become more and more frequent. So how are airlines dealing with this? Well, this is a huge problem. And the only thing that I can see is happening is that what the feds are now doing is they're letting the airlines have a little more leeway to set their own standards.
Starting point is 00:05:43 So some airlines are now saying that, well, it can only be a dog of a certain size. The act isn't written that way, but I think the government is realizing that they've got a real serious problem here. When exactly did this become such an issue? Because I don't feel like growing up going on planes, I ever saw an animal. And now it's pretty commonplace to see a dog here and there. One of the things that has fueled this is the development of internet sites that will basically sell you a letter from a, quote, licensed mental health professional, unquote, usually between $100 or $130. And so basically there's been this cottage industry in basically, I would consider them phony letters. Another thing that I think has fueled this is the idea that animals are therapists, basically, that animals enhance human psychological well-being, that they make old people less depressed, etc., etc.
Starting point is 00:06:40 So this idea that animals can save us, can provide us with psychological support, has really gotten hold in our culture. And you studied this idea. Is it true? Do animals save us? Do they make us more emotionally sound, mentally sound? My answer is sometimes, but the actual evidence for that is vastly less than most people think. First of all, we have very good evidence, very solid evidence, that, for example, petting a dog will cause a temporary reduction in both physiological and psychological stress. However, these are short-term effects. The evidence that animals being long-term treatments for psychiatric disorders or psychological disorders is very poor.
Starting point is 00:07:34 And there have been hundreds and hundreds of studies on this now. Virtually everybody that has reviewed this literature, their main takeaway conclusion is that the research is so shoddy that we can really not make many conclusions from it. Studies typically don't have enough subjects to be reliable. They don't usually have the appropriate control groups. And so the science on animals as therapists, per se, is not very good. Okay, so we're still unsure whether therapy animals work. What about emotional support
Starting point is 00:08:06 animals, ESAs? The science in emotional support animals is zero. Really? I have looked and I have not found a single study. I haven't even found a bad study. Emotional support animals is not a category in my field that people are actually studying. So it's sort of like a pseudoscience, but then when you have people saying, listen, if I travel with this guinea pig, this puppy, this duck, it makes this experience less painful for me. And I guess there's no real arguing with that, though, right? You're exactly right.
Starting point is 00:08:40 And the reason why there's no arguing with that is because... Do you have a pet? I got a couple dogs in Los Angeles that mean the world to me. So you probably feel like they provide you with the emotional support. So in other words, your personal experience is that animals are good for people and that they do enhance our well-being. So people want to believe that animals can work some kind of magic in terms of improving human health and happiness. Whether or not it's true is under question.
Starting point is 00:09:13 Coming up next, an emotional support dog drops by the studio. This is Today Explained. you ever listen to a podcast about movies one of my favorites is how did this get made it features comedian paul sheer and some of his comedian friends sitting around and shoot the breeze about how terrible concepts turned into terrible and sometimes terribly awesome movies, like Face Off, for example. The comedians sit around and share fun facts about production, like Nick Cage improvised the line, I want to take his face off.
Starting point is 00:09:59 Anyway, Paul Scheer is a lifelong movie fan, but he's never seen many of the all-time greats, so on another podcast called Unspooled, he teams up with real-life film critic Amy Nicholson, and they're remedying the fact that he's missed out on so much by watching the AFI's top 100 movies of all time to find out what makes classics like Citizen Kane or Taxi Driver so special. Paul and Amy dissect iconic scenes, they talk to artists,
Starting point is 00:10:24 they talk to people in the industry, and discover how some of the great movies got made. Also, Face Off is great. Unspooled with Paul Scheer and Amy Nicholson, wherever you find your podcasts. Oh my gosh. Cutest guest ever. Hi.
Starting point is 00:10:49 I'm Kate. That's Kal-El, or Kal for short. We named him after Superman. Is Kal shy? A little bit. Takes him a little bit to warm up. Kal, I'm a nice guy, I swear. Oh, he's so cute.
Starting point is 00:11:01 How old is Kal? He's a year and two months. And like, describe this dog for people who can't see him. Yeah, he weighs about 35 pounds. He's got the coloring of a yellow lab. He's got the folded ears of the Shar-Pei, the curly tail, the chow-chow in the Shar-Pei. And then he's kind of got this purple black spotted tongue. And he's wearing like a business casual black dog vest.
Starting point is 00:11:24 What does the vest mean? So he's an emotional support business casual black dog vest. What does the vest mean? So he's an emotional support animal is what it means. For us, for me and my fiance, he basically helps us with anxiety. My fiance is an ex-Army Ranger. So he has severe PTSD. So out in really crowded areas and stuff, it might make him a little uncomfortable. And Cal just kind of sits there and sits by his side and kind of be a support system. And how do you, like, certify a dog as an ESA?
Starting point is 00:11:52 What exactly is that process? We went through a really long process for this as far as just figuring out what we needed to do, legit companies, because so many people just throw vests on their dogs and say they're service dogs or emotional support dogs. But there is a legitimate process. There is. So we went through a company called Off-Leash Canine. And they do a two-week board and train with him.
Starting point is 00:12:13 It teaches him all the basic commands, sit, down, stay. Once he does that, he needs to prove that he's not going to beg for food. Obviously, that he's potty trained. He's not going to go to the bathroom anywhere. And that his demeanor is like very friendly and very, you know, just comfortable. Tell me like just straight up day to day how Cal makes you and your fiance feel better. He's always there. He's always wagging his tail and happy. And Cal's a, he's a kisser. Oh, yeah? Yeah. So like when we walk in the door, the first thing he wants to do. Cal's a kisser. Oh, yeah? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:12:45 So when we walk in the door, the first thing he wants to do is jump up and kiss us. And he's just constantly there. He knows to be right by our side when we walk out the door or when we walk in. You can count on him like that. Sometimes it's harder to count on people to be there all the time. So we did a Wounded Warrior event up in New York.
Starting point is 00:13:15 My fiancé has really bad nightmares and stuff like that. Most service dogs are usually trained for that, but Cal does it just as a regular dog. He'll go up and he'll lay on his chest and calm him down. And while we were up there, we were out and there was a lot of loud noises. And Cal would just sit there kind of by his side and kind of put his nose up against him and calm him down. He knew that he could just pet him and be there. How does Cal know that he's feeling anxiety?
Starting point is 00:13:43 Dogs just seem to know that for some reason. Magical dogs. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So have you ever traveled with Cal before? Like on a plane or anything like that? We have not done a plane yet. We were planning on doing it in February with him for the first time. So we have traveled with him.
Starting point is 00:14:00 He's done long car rides. He's done boat rides. He's done stuff like that. He's never been on a plane, though. Are you nervous about it? No, not with him. He's done stuff like that. He's never been on a plane, though. Are you nervous about it? No, not with him. He's pretty good about it. Huh.
Starting point is 00:14:08 He's one of those dogs, like, that's what they're trained to do. They kind of just sit between your legs or near you, and they're good to go. I know people who have just taken their ESAs on a plane because it was cheaper than boarding the animal or cheaper than, like, really paying to really paying to ship the dog across the country. Do you worry that people might think that's what you're doing, even though you have this legitimate purpose to have this animal around? I think people will always have a doubt about whether people actually need it. But just like service dogs, they don't have a right to ask you what you need it for.
Starting point is 00:14:41 And that's nice for us, but at the same time, it does make some people uncomfortable because, you know, so many people don't follow the rules and you get an aggressive dog on an enclosed plane 10,000 feet up in the air. It's not exactly the most comforting situation for anybody. Have you ever known anyone who had an ESA situation that was less than legit? I know a few people who have had ESAs, and they probably really shouldn't have had ESAs for any reason. I actually know a friend that has a dog who's probably about 160 pounds. So a big boy.
Starting point is 00:15:18 It's a big dog. He's friendly, but he's never been well-trained. Okay. And he just wants to travel with them. He doesn't want to leave the dog at home. Yeah. So he just, there's a vest on him and takes him. I'm like, you do that, and then it makes people like us seem like we shouldn't have them.
Starting point is 00:15:36 Yeah. You know, and it makes it seem almost like it's horrible for them to do what they're supposed to be doing. But I mean, I've never had anybody who legitimately needs an ESA been stopped and have issues with it. Yeah. Do you think there should be some sort of better system? Do you think the system could be tweaked to make sure that people like you and your fiance could take Cal on a plane and people like your buddy with 160 pound beast could maybe have to like, a higher bar, you know, to bring an ESA on a plane? There needs to be a system to it. There needs to be, you know, paperwork and a tag.
Starting point is 00:16:16 And, you know, the problem is, like, you can buy a vest on Amazon and fake the whole thing. Yeah. And, you know, it doesn't make it fair to people like us. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, the vest should be almost like a graduation thing. Like, you can only get it if you actually get your dog to go through the program and graduate. We interviewed this doctor.
Starting point is 00:16:37 Let's call him Doc. What was his name again? Hal? Hal the doctor. And he told us that there is no real science backing up ESAs, that there's no real evidence to say that they psychologically affect us. I mean, there's something to say that dogs make us happy, but that doesn't necessarily say that, like, these animals can cure anything. Do you think they should be continued to be used in treatment,
Starting point is 00:17:05 even though there isn't the science to back it up necessarily? Yeah. Well, I mean, they're not meant to cure anything. You know, neither is a service dog. We have a service dog. We have two. One's retired and one that is almost done finishing his school. And they're meant to make us feel better. Right. And make us comfortable in situations we're not comfortable in. So, you know, people with really bad anxiety and depression and stuff like that, an ESA comes in extremely handy. You don't need them to perform a task other than just be there and calm you down. Yeah. And the whole point is for them, for you not to be in an aggressive situation anymore.
Starting point is 00:17:44 And they're not going to be aggressive towards you. They're just going to be there and make you feel better. I mean, dogs are known to, like, you know, they're supposed to be the one that always shows you love. They're never going to hold it against you. They're always going to be there. Like, you walk in the door after a bad day and they're just sitting there smiling, wagging their tail.
Starting point is 00:18:17 Cal L is a very good boy. He lives in Potomac, Maryland with Caitlin Clark. I'm Sean Rottmussverm. This is Today Explained. Happy American Thanksgiving. The team's taking the nextussverm. This is Today Explained. Happy American Thanksgiving. The team's taking the next two days off. We'll be back Monday. The team is Irene Noguchi.
Starting point is 00:18:31 I am thankful for my parents. If I could take a Doc Brown DeLorean back in time, I would thank them for all the hard work they put into raising us three kids. The older I get, the more I realize I didn't thank them enough growing up. Love you, Mom and Dad. Bridget McCarthy. I'm thankful for my supersized, super fun, and super funny family.
Starting point is 00:18:57 Afim Shapiro. One, two, one, two, one, two. Dirty projectors. I'll be thankful for public transportation next time it takes me less than three hours to get to work. Thank you. Luke Vanderplug. I'm thankful for gravy, the IWALK 2.0, the great state of Michigan, and my gosh darn family. Noam Hassenfeld.
Starting point is 00:19:17 I'm thankful for everyone that listens to the show, especially my dad, who I think has not missed an episode so far, and has let me know with extremely long emails after a lot of shows. Thanks Abba. Catherine Wheeler. I'm thankful for this awesome team and I'm thankful for my super loving, well sometimes loving, family and friends. With music from the mammalian breakmaster Cylinder. He's actually kind of a
Starting point is 00:19:47 quiet type. I'm thankful for all these fine people and you. Thanks for listening. Today Explained is produced in association with Stitcher and we
Starting point is 00:19:56 are part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Thank you.

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.