Emotional support animals can legitimately provide social support, emotional comfort and other beneficial actions for people with emotional disabilities. They can play a key role in mental health treatment plans and can make a real difference in the comfort of their owners.

In July, a gentleman named Tom Waddington was on a quest to row across the Atlantic Ocean all by himself.  At one point, rowing in a rainstorm, he started to feel lonely and depressed, and questioned whether he could make it.  At that point, a pod of pilot whales surrounded him, growing from a small pod to more than hundreds.  They splashed and played around him as he watched in amazement. Although he delighted in their accompaniment, he was concerned they would hit his boat or sink it by accident.  “I was like, ‘Oh my God! They could hit my boat and sink it, like as in Moby Dick,” he was quoted as saying, as the number grew to more than 1,000. They did not hamper his trip, but instead provided “whale-fueled adrenaline” by frolicking with him.

Joie Henney from Pennsylvania had spent his life rescuing and rehabilitating animals which he released back into the wild.  However, he rescued an alligator with which he became close. “Wally became special, and he attached to me really close, so I kept him,” Henney said. This 6-foot-long emotional support alligator accompanied Henney on many adventures, including visiting nursing homes and meeting with the mayor, even “smiling” in his red harness as admirers hugged and petted him. “Wally is very important to me as well as to a lot of other people that he makes happy and puts joy in their hearts,” Henney has said. The animal is a federally licensed emotional support alligator who loves cuddling and giving kisses. Not everyone accepts an alligator as an emotional support animal, however, which Henney found out when he was turned away from attending a Phillies game.

The television show Inside Edition reported on Pita Peppa who is “not an average pet pig.” According to the report, Pita Peppa is “a friend and healer” to 18-year-old Emily, who was born with a rare condition called Chiari malformation that causes her brain to push on her spinal cord. She struggles with pain and depression after going through more than 30 surgeries at Seattle Children’s Hospital. Apparently, “ever since Pita Peppa came into her life, things have gotten a lot better.”

People have claimed snakes, ducks, hamsters, ferrets, parrots, hedgehogs, llamas, miniature horses, monkeys, chickens and pigs are their emotional support animals, but let’s face it…Practically any animal can fulfill the role of making oneself feel better emotionally. An emotional support animal provides companionship, relieves loneliness, and sometimes helps with depression, anxiety, and certain phobias, but they do not have special training to perform tasks that assist people with disabilities. One needs to keep in mind that emotional support animals and service animals are not the same.  Service animals, such as a guide dog for the blind, are specifically trained for the purpose of guiding someone without vision. Emotional support animals do not receive specialized training.  I was shopping in Walmart the other day and a woman had a small dog that wore a jacket that said, “emotional support animal.”  She had it on a leash, but it came over to me, sniffed my shoe, and then peed on it.  Service animals would not do that.  People are certainly entitled to have animals that make them feel better, but they should not bring them out in public.