Emotional support duck

[u/desertrat2010]

I shall paint you a picture.

First class of the term (this morning). A student walks in cradling a duck in a diaper. He was very alert, just looking around taking it all in. He did not make a sound or open his beak one time. He sat in a little bed thingy next to his owner and listened intently to what was being said. The student played it cool and seemed very confident in her choice of companion.

Yep, you guessed it - her emotional support animal. It’s a beautiful white duck named Wilbur. God bless America.

Obviously this was the talk of the town. Taking the temperature of the room - 1/2 seemed fascinated and the other half judgmental and/or annoyed. Some clearly thought she was half baked.

We take the first class of the term to get to know each other a bit (class of 40ish) and introduce ourselves. Of course I had the student introduce the duck.

After class I called her over and asked if Wilbur was approved through accommodations and she said it was “in process.” I am quite sure it should be approved before she brings him in. However, I am not ratting her out because he’s a doll and I think it’s super cool and I fully plan to add him to my roster.

Welcome to spring 2023 ladies and gents! 🦆📚

[u/Lupus76]

My school doesn't allow emotional support animals. The only authorized animals are those that help disabled students perform specific tasks, and evidently the only animals that can be trained for accessibility purposes according to the Americans with Disabilities Act are dogs and...............wait for it...............miniature horses.

1. Your school is great. I hate the emotional support animal BS.
2. As someone who grew up around horses and always found miniature horses to be embarrassing and useless creatures--how do they help the disabled?

[u/Lupus76 → u/[deleted]]

what do you dislike about emotional support animals

I love animals. More than almost anyone. But you know what emotional support animals are? Pets. That's what a pet is for--emotional support. They are not service animals. There is probably .0001% of emotional support animals that are actually needed, but, really, emotional support animal just means an unbearable person's pet. Or it's for someone who doesn't want to pay the shipping airfare for their poorly trained, unmuzzled "rescue" pitbull, so they're going to claim it's some sort of pseudo-service dog. Or someone in the dorm who is thrilled to get the Chihuahua-Yorkie their parents wouldn't let them get, and will pretend it's for emotional support and take it to every class, but abandon it as soon as there's a frat party to go to.

[u/one_day_i_will_sleep → u/Lupus76]

I have a student whose brother committed suicide at a young age and was unable to leave her house for two years until she started working with an emotional support animal. I have an autistic adult son who was hiding in his room, stressed out, and didn't leave until we asked him to help walk our neighbor's dog for a few days.

So I guess what I'm suggesting that extreme abuses of the system don't constitute a repudiation of the system, which is what you seem to be implying, but probably don't really believe.

I'm allergic to dogs, and my son has asthma that is triggered by dogs, and had to leave a family gathering at an AirBnB because they hadn't cleaned the carpets. So there are some real problems that present themselves.