Service Dogs

Service Dogs

Ok, I’m probably going to step on a few toes here, but, whaddya want from me? Have a gander at this article. Now, I’ve been noticing this “service animal” crap for some time now. I saw this lady with five teacup poodles in her shopping cart at the supermarket, and all had these bogus “service animal” vests on. I mean, come on, lady, what are these five runts going to do? Dial 911 and do mouth-to-mouth? Or is that muzzle-to-mouth? Oh, right! These are “emotional support dogs”! Excuse me, but when did we become a nation of such helpless weenies that we need the pooch to go with us and hold our hand? I’m thinking I’d like to get an emotional support horse myself. I can ride it to the store and then right in with it.

Ok, this all manifested when we went overboard with the “victim mentality” and the government started telling businesses they had to kowtow to everything under the sun. No one denies that seeing-eye dogs should be allowed. But “emotional support” dogs into supermarkets, food prep areas, and restaurants? Really?! Seriously?! Come on, man, I’m not buying it. And here goes the government now half-heartedly realizing their mistake. So, their solution? Pass a law! Of course! Why didn’t we think of that before? Oh, wait, we did, and that’s how people are dragging everything from poodles to kangaroos into restaurants as a result. Soon, we won’t need to pay admission to go to the zoo. We can’t just go down to the supermarket and see all of those animals for free.

I have a better idea. Why not just return the right to refuse service back to the businesses? I mean, ok, if some café wants to let people bring in their dogs, rodents, or whatever fad pet-of-the-day they’ve got in, so be it. Let them. If people don’t like eating next to a pooch licking its posterior parts, then don’t go to that restaurant. But, quid pro quo, if some restaurant orders someone with a phony “service animal” to leave, then they ought to have that right. The government does not need to be involved in that equation. Government getting involved is how we ended up with the problem.

Look, it is getting ridiculous. People are calling owning a dog a “dog culture” now and insisting on taking these evolutionary wrong turns into every establishment under the sun from coffee shops to bookstores. Excuse me, but I don’t want your dog bothering me when I’m trying to peruse the books, thank you. No, I don’t think your dog is cute, sorry. I think you need to grow up, personally. There are a time and place for everything and we don’t need some flea-bitten cur in every store demonstrating why many people prefer cats. But having said that, I think if a business wants to allow your butt-licker into the shop with you, that’s not the business of the government. However, that also means when a store tells you to leave because you can’t bring Fido in there, then suck it up, do it, and don’t whine about it.

It really is that simple. It’s called let the business decide what’s best for them and their customers. The government needs to just get out of the way and stop getting in the way. My gosh, when I lived in Flagstaff, the city decided to mandate that all new shopping centers and stores needed to have “landscaping”. Which, by the way, ate into their parking lots and created problems of watering the plants. And this from a city that had water rationing at times! Because of water shortages! The city government basically ordered business to plant trees and bushes in parking lots, then whines about water use. Typical government solutions. “Our solution is to solve a problem that didn’t exist by creating more we’ll have to solve in the future which will create more problems and, at least, ten social justice and activist groups to manifest and start whining.” Brilliant! I can hear the sniveling already.

Hey, if you really need a service animal, I’m not saying you should be marginalized. But at some point, we’ve got to let businesses establish a compelling interest of their own. Like, not allowing dogs into supermarkets except under very strict circumstances. Why? Because animals belong in the meat section, sorry. If a place serves food, they have a compelling interest to keep it clean. If people get sick from the food, who gets sued? You? The government? No, the business does. But now the government has basically forced businesses to be just as afraid of refusing entry of a “service animal” and being sued, thus, forcing them to hazard the purity and safety of their food in the process. Because let some whiner be refused entry into a restaurant with his “emotional support dog” and he sues the business. I say let the businesses decide what’s best for their customers and the integrity of their products.

One day, someone is going to bring out a dog that should not be in public, it’ll bite someone, and who’ll get sued? The business! Because they are the ones with the deeper pocket and the insurance to pay. Is that right? Of course not. Or, someone being attacked by one of these “support animals” will produce a weapon and pop the pooch. Imagine the legions of whiners and candle-light vigils at that point. The government is playing see-saw here and putting businesses into the situation where they’re damned if they do and damned if they don’t. I’ve seen two of these “support dogs” go at each other in a shop and while it was entertaining, I felt for the store manager who got a barrage of insults when he asked both of these “dog guardians” and their ill-behaved mongrels to leave. They, of course, threatened legal action and blah, blah, blah.

Again, the United States has become a nation of sue-happy weenies that must go everywhere with a dog to give them “emotional support”. And this nation thinks it could defeat Russia in open battle?! Ha, ha, ha! What’ll happen when the U.S. military forces are cut off from their emotional support dogs? How are people in other countries getting through wars, famines, genocide, and horrifying diseases running rampant without emotional support animals? I mean, really, people, let’s put things into perspective. Not to mention the things people SHOULD be concerned about, they’re not. This country could be marched en masse into a vast concentration camp as long as they could take their dogs with them.

So, no, the government needs to stop fiddling about with this big, steaming pile it left on the floor that it calls “laws”. No one is compelled to go into a business and patronize it. Well, except for health insurance where ObamaCare forces us into that business to buy that steaming pile of product. Be that as it may, I think it’s up to a business to decide what creatures and life-forms it allows into their establishment. Don’t like it? Don’t go there. What’s so dang hard to understand about that?