人類與動物 | Emotional support animals

​How would you feel sitting next to a peacock on the flight to your next vacation? What about a pig?  “When pigs fly” is an expression that is used to describe that it is impossible for something to happen, because in the natural world pigs can’t fly. Now it might be necessary to come up with a better way to express this, thanks to the latest craze in American excesses –“emotional-support animals”. 

If you thought pushing animals around in baby prams was ridiculous, now you can witness the next level of absurdity, as people claim that the poor creatures that they drag around with them are essential for the owners’ psychological well-being.

​Aside from the obvious dangers that are outlined in the article, such as flight attendants and other passengers being disturbed or even attacked, the constant risk of allergic reactions, diseases, and defecation by the pets, what consideration is there being given to the poor creatures themselves?

​They are forcibly being taken into an environment that is extremely unnatural and no doubt uncomfortable for them, purely for the selfish wishes of their human masters.

While there may be some documented benefits for animals to help humans that are suffering from PTSD or other mental disorders, it seems that almost no consideration is given to what kind of suffering these animals undergo when they are forced into being the permanent companions of people.

While the article claims that many people who try to bring animals on planes and into other public spaces normally reserved for humans are not at all suffering from any actual disorders, and are just doing so for purely self-centred reasons, it does not seem to see any issue with treating animals as objects like this.

Might not some of these emotional-support animals require emotional-support animals of their own to deal with the stresses of being permanently enslaved to emotionally insecure, egocentric humans? 

參考資料:
More and more “emotional-support animals” are boarding planes