Originally Posted by
FlyJSH
My reference (which is in my last post) is from the ADA.gov website. I quoted the pertinent part (seen in italics). And, again, here is the site:
https://www.ada.gov/service_animals_2010.htm
I will confess I don't know if the ADA is referencing a smaller breed of "miniature" horses than the sites you referenced. That said, I was referencing federal law/federal opinion, and it is the feds who wrote the law.
Edit: I did a bit more research and found indeed therapy and service horses are on the smaller end of the miniature horse spectrum generally 28" or smaller. An example of the live stock for therapy use comes from
http://allstarfarm.wixsite.com/miniaturehorses
Now, is the horse in the video in fact a service animal as defined by the ADA? Who knows?
And citing YOUR OWN reference:
(Miniature horses generally range in height from 24 inches to 34 inches measured to the shoulders and generally weigh between 70 and 100 pounds.)
You cite some anonymous bureaucrat who is clearly wrong, since the horse breed registering authority says differently. Nor is the ADA website directive, since it doesn’t indicate that you can disqualify animals in excess of 100# or 250# or 350# for that matter, and 34” tall adult animals will almost certainly be far closer to 250 than 100#.
And while smaller animals are available, there is nothing requiring that the smaller animal be used or disqualifying larger animals. The ADA website says generally, which is not going to serve as a legal restriction on larger animals.
And the laws of physics, frankly, don’t give a rat’s @$$ about what some anonymous ADA bureaucrat (or Congress itself) thinks is a good idea. Would you seriously want to be on a fifty seat RJ that hits turbulence with 200# of unrestrained animal panicking? With no one to control it but a 110# FA - THE ONLY FA on the aircraft - and an owner who is either him/herself blind or so bat$hit scared of flying that he/she can’t face the fear of flying without a 200# animal in his/her lap? And that was BEFORE they hit the turbulence. And, oh yeah, who do you really want that 110# FA to be dealing with? The stampeding horse going up and down the aisle or the unaccompanied minor in seat 3A? Because he/she can’t do both.
I am not a person lacking in empathy. I get it, the law is well intentioned, but even Congress lacks the authority to repeal the laws of physics.
Inevitably this will get someone hurt or killed.
And then there is the issue of liability. The feds recently told an airline they MAY NOT -as a policy - ban pit bulls, just because they’ve had a series of pit bull ESA bites passenger and/or FA issues. They CAN ban individual pit bulls if they can demonstrate that PARTICULAR pit bull is a risk but no blanket bans. But who makes that decision and what criteria do they use and who buys the liability for the bite?
Some faceless bureaucrat is insisting on far more ‘due process’ for pit bulls than was ever required for male college students under the Dept of Education’s ‘Dear Colleague’ letter. You are basically forced to give powerful animals the benefit of the doubt that they will not act up.
OK, I understand, it’s for the disabled, but if some faceless bureaucrat (or even Congress) actually wants this to happen, the feds ought to eat the liability and legally define the criteria, not pass off the job to a ramp agent or an FA or a couple of pilots with the liability that goes with it. If this is a risk that society has decided to take for the purpose of inclusiveness, then society as a whole should bear the liability.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d LOVE a utopia where everyone is kind and we are all equal and we can be surrounded full time by our loving unicorns and beautiful rainbows, but that ain’t reality. And if there is one thing I have learned in life, it’s that reality will always eventually intrude on wishful thinking.
End rant.