It’s not the first time that the justice system has been accused of going to the dogs – but it may be the first time it’s been meant literally.
According to recent reports, defendants and witnesses in England and Wales have taken to bringing pets to court with them for emotional support, “causing chaos”. Judiciary officials have advised judges on how to deal with the issue after anecdotal reports of dogs barking, urinating and defecating, jumping up and otherwise disrupting proceedings. Assistance animals, such as guide dogs and medical alert dogs, are highly trained and covered under equality legislation to enter courts. “Emotional support animals” (ESAs), however, are not regulated in the UK; they may not necessarily even be trained at all.
Though it’s become a punchline, the concept is not devoid of merit. ESAs first came to mainstream attention around 2015 following some high-profile examples on US college campuses. The idea is that the presence and companionship of a pet can help to alleviate the symptoms or effects of someone’s disability or mental health condition, and help them to succeed at school. Educators have described and defended the transformative impact of these dogs (as they most often are) on disadvantaged students. Indeed, because they receive no special training, it is only “the impact of those benefits … that makes an ESA therapeutically appropriate” (to quote from a 2019 editorial in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, my italics).
But what started out rooted in reality, as a compassionate accommodation extended in specific circumstances to a few, is increasingly being taken advantage of. It is hard to believe that anyone would attempt to argue that they can’t function without their emotional support squirrel. Or peacock. Or turkey. And yet all those cases have been made, presumably with a straight face.
Public ridicule and disapproval hasn’t slowed emotional support animals’ roll into legitimacy. In 2014, a New Yorker reporter, trying to pinpoint the exact line where the “therapy animal” line crossed into parody, ended up taking an alpaca on a train. Four years later, after a spate of “pigs, monkeys, turkeys, snakes and oh-so-many dogs” on planes, the New York Times called it a fad and even a “scam”. But since the pandemic widely stoked anxiety and unravelled the social fabric, perhaps beyond repair, it’s been harder to put the ESA back into its airline-approved cage. Yes, some will undeniably have therapeutic benefits, but more can only be bald-faced grifts.
Last week, a 71-year-old Nevada man called Karl Mitchell, who had been keeping seven tigers at his home without a permit, argued that they were there on doctor’s orders, to help with his post-traumatic stress disorder. In these post-truth times, it seems, one person’s emotional support animal may be another’s apex predator. Of course, dogs and cats are not the only legitimate pets, and I am more enthusiastic than most about species that are scaly, slimy or scary. But even if we are to take these cases in good faith, it’s not callous to say that one person’s coping mechanism can’t be allowed to take precedence over the experiences of everyone else.
Take Wally, the emotional support alligator, who became briefly famous a few years ago. His owner said caring for Wally helped him with his depression, and I believe him. Equally I can see that, for other people, encountering the 5.5ft-long reptile at, say, a baseball game might induce anxiety – despite Wally’s owner’s assurance that he “doesn’t bite”.
That’s the extreme (AKA American) presentation of the ESA phenomenon. But it’s not dissimilar in principle from the kennel-type chaos reported at British courts. The justice system is dysfunctional enough as it is; one dog may help one person through, but many dogs are likely to just add to the anxiety, delays and disruption. Having not been trained to resist distractions or weather long periods in unfamiliar, busy settings, it may not be much fun for the dogs, either. In recent years, dog ownership has come to be understood by many as simply having a dog and taking it with you, wherever you go – first to the pub and cinema, now your sentencing. It may be preferable to leaving them cooped up at home alone all day – but it’s far from facilitating their natural behaviours, as is considered the gold-standard for animal husbandry.
The rise of ESAs has been taken up in the culture wars, as evidence that some feeble-minded “babies” are unable to cope with reality. A more compassionate view is that, clearly, people feel in need of support – but leaning on our pets isn’t the answer. That we’d even think to argue otherwise illustrates the heavy burden we expect animals to carry – the roles we expect them to play for us without, necessarily, equivalent regard for their wellbeing. Consider the animals that are claimed to alleviate flying anxiety, for example. Long-haul flights are uncomfortable enough for us – imagine if you had no idea why you were doing it or indeed what a plane was. Tywinn, the nine-year-old miniature schnauzer, certainly didn’t know what was in store.
Just before Christmas in 2024, his owner, Alison Lawrence, tried to board a flight with him from Florida to Bogotá, Colombia. When she was found to not have the correct paperwork, Lawrence allegedly took Tywinn to the airport bathroom and drowned him. She caught her flight; his body was later discovered in the bin.
The story of Wally the alligator also seems to have ended unhappily, with Wally’s disappearance or perhaps abduction. He never bit, his owner said – but maybe he should have. We may benefit from animals’ support, and even feel entitled to it. But can they count on ours?
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