eritated:

kaijutegu:

justnoodlefishthings:

Reminder: emotional support animals are not service animals.

They do not have public access rights.

They are not granted access to anything except airline cabin space and otherwise pet-free housing by the ADA.

If you take your emotional support animal in a place where that animal is not welcome, you are actively making things more difficult for people who need service dogs. Many businesses would rather just ban all animals, service dogs included, and deal with fines.

There are no reptiles that can legally be a service animal. 

They’re not just harmful to service dogs, vests like these are outright illegal, as they’re fasely labelling your animal as a service animal (the layman would think a vest means service/therapy animal), when they’re not.

If you really NEED to bring your ESA somewhere, try calling ahead and explaining the situation! Some places will let you bring them, but be prepared for a no, because legally they don’t have to allow it.

kaijutegu:

justnoodlefishthings:

@fishyfishykitty

My apologies, I thought you were replying to the picture in general, not someone else’s comment

But. I’m sorry. You’re wrong.

I love Nubby. I love my fish. But I understand that ultimately, they are physically incapable of loving me back. Reptiles and fish do not secrete oxytocin, the hormone responsible for emotional attachment, social bonds, and love. They for sure can have preferences for humans, or feel comfortable around them, but to say they can return the love is false. They’re not dogs or cats. 

I would die for Nubby in an instant but I know he doesn’t “love me” like my cat or dogs do. Attributing mammalian traits to reptiles is erroneous.

Seriously attributing human emotions to animals that physically cannot experience them in a way we’re familiar with is a terrible idea- especially if it ever involves care practices. Now, this doesn’t mean that animal don’t have emotions- but what it does mean is that we don’t understand them entirely. The way a snake or lizard or fish thinks and feels is very alien to us- they don’t have the same social structures we do, and they don’t have that drive to please us that a dog would. Just assuming that animals love us the way we love them is inaccurate at best and ends in the animal’s death at worst. 

I love my fish, and they’re great, but they don’t love me. They get excited when they see me because I have food sometimes, but that’s it. There’s no evolutionary reason for them to have the capability for anything further.