Louisiana senator wants to curb spread of emotional support animals

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Louisiana lawmakers are considering a bill that would crack down on the proliferation of dubious emotional support animal certifications, which people are misusing to get their pets aboard commercial flights or to skirt no-pet policies at apartments and hotels. 

House Bill 407, sponsored by Rep. Joe Stagni, R-Kenner, cleared the Senate Health & Welfare Committee Tuesday and is pending consideration on the Senate floor. 

The proposal would make it illegal for health care professionals to certify an emotional support animal for anyone who is not actually disabled. It would also make it illegal for anyone to falsely represent an animal as a service dog or service dog-in-training.

Unlike service dogs that are bred and trained to perform tasks or detect seizures for people with disabilities, critics say emotional support animals are, for the most part, just pets with no special training or skills.

Emotional support animals have proliferated in recent years, with viral photos and videos showing people boarding flights with all manner of exotic pets. Numerous websites exist offering easy-to-obtain certifications from actual licensed therapists. One can get a certificate for any kind of animal simply by paying a fee. 

Stagni said there has been a 9,000% increase in emotional support animal applications since 2011. It’s unclear where the statistic originated, but it was included in a 2019 article in The Hill that cited an unidentified online, for-profit national service registry. 

Sens. Patrick McMath, R-Covington, and Jay Luneau, D-Pineville, joked about the problem during Tuesday’s hearing. 

“Sen. Luneau just told me he has a peacock as an emotional support animal,” McMath said. 

The joke isn’t that far from reality. In 2018, a New York woman tried to board a United Airlines flight with an emotional support peacock named Dexter. The airline refused the feathered passenger as photos of the bird perched on the handle of an airport luggage cart quickly went viral. 

Although the senators were supportive of Stagni’s legislation and seemed to agree there is a growing problem with pet owners misrepresenting the clinical necessity of their animals, there were some hangups with certain provisions that would give landlords absolute immunity from lawsuits for any injuries or damages caused by service animals.

Luneau said he could envision big problems if a service dog repeatedly bites a tenant after a landlord was warned the first time and refused to take action. Luneau said he would work on an amendment to rectify that issue.

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