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Friday January 26, 2017.
Join Attorneys Mark Friedman and Joann Burnett as they discuss:
"Is a no-pet building a thing of the past"
This will be presentation and Q &A on the various issues surrounding:
pets, service animals, and emotional support animals.
10:00 a.m. to 11:30 Main Clubhouse Classroom C
Dave Israel
I guess we'll see what Mark and the Attorney Burnett have to say, but I can tell you I am pretty disgusted with the way in which a person can get a "companion dog" approved by getting a "certificate" from a company without ever being interviewed. If pressed for more, one such company in Colorado said that for an additional fee of nearly two hundred dollars they would even have a psychologist (psychiatrist?) in your own state provide a written statement citing your need for the dog—sight unseen! The dog unseen and you unseen! This is a racket. I don't blame the people so much, who may think it's all legitimate. After all, they get an impressive-looking certificate. I do blame those involved in this unscrupulous practice. I wonder what the attorneys will have to say. Probably that if you want to fight it, you need an attorney! Everything seems to boil down to that. How nice all this stuff is for the law firms. This country has gone way overboard in legalizing the rights of buyers. Where are the rights of sellers? The pendulum has swung too far to one side in all this. It needs adjusting by our courts.
ReplyDeleteAnd the other side is..........do you know the amount of research done proving how much of a difference an animal can make in a senior's life, especially one who lives on their own. You do not have to have mental health issues to benefit from a companion animal. I realize that a dog can be a problem if the owner does not look after it properly, but why would a building say no to cats? When I put my cat down a few months ago I thought maybe it was time to stop being a pet owner. It didn't take long to realize I could never be without a companion animal. You can be assured if it was necessary to buy some phony certificate, that's exactly what I would have done. And 2 year old Bella is so pleased that I felt that way and paid a visit to the pound, we have fallen in love :)
DeleteThat's why C/V has pet friendly buildings. The other writers resent a decision by a Government Agency, not a legislature, overriding one's right to contract not to have pets in their building. Also remember, not all pet owner are responsible. Many do not pick up after their animals. Also, this decision is not limited to dogs and cats. Snakes, pigs and more will be here.
DeleteI personally don't care for cats or if someone owns one as long as they keep them indoors. Many cat owners don't realize the odor a cat leaves behind, but again, not my problem. The issue of dogs does matter to me. As a former owner of a service dog, I have a letter from a VA Doctor, and took my dog to a Professional Trainer (Canines 4 Hope) and had her Certified as a Service Dog. I was originally offered a large Golden Retriever or Labrador, but since I preferred a smaller non-allergenic non shedding breed, I paid out of pocket for the dog and training. As many will attest, my dog Sadie, did not bark and was well behaved. If you have a dog and are trying to call it an emotional support or service dog, there SHOULD be some form of training required. I have never heard of a true service dog biting a person unless it was in defense of it's handler, but have heard of so-called emotional support dogs biting, barking etc.
ReplyDeleteI gave Sadie to a person going deaf with the provision that they take her to get the additional training for a deaf service. She spends half the year in Canada and half here. There may come a time that I require a service dog again, but it gets my goat to see the abuse of the ADA with service animals and emotional support animals.
Some the abuses include people claiming they need two dogs or more. That is abusing the system to the max. The laws need major overhauling to weed out these abuses. To make owners provide letters from doctors that have actually examined patients and not some quack out to make a quick buck.
Bob, it is not a law. This decision did not come from any legislature.
DeleteTwo footnotes to my post:
ReplyDelete1. Our condo association now allows one house cat, one bird, and fish.
2. I should have said "without ever being interviewed IN PERSON."
To whomever has an orange yowling male cat, it is at Sussex L at 8:15pm every night, loudly looking for a mate. Please get him neutered. We do have cats, but we do not have any rats or mice :-)
ReplyDeleteMaybe you'd like a cat story? We had an all-black cat we named Shadow when my kids were growing up in MA. Some neighbors had a cat or two, also. Florence Brown, who lived several houses down the road from us, had several cats, some of them strays she would feed. Shadow eventually got sick and died. A few days later, Shadow's death having become neighborhood news, the kids told us of a remarkable coincidence: One of Florence Brown's cats had died on the very same day Shadow had. It wasn't until still later, comparing notes with Florence, that we realized Shadow and Florence's cat who had died were one and the same. Shadow had been leading a double life for probably ten years. He slept at our house but got fed and enjoyed the amenities at both places!
ReplyDelete