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Animals are wonderful, and the comfort, help and joy they bring to humans can be priceless.
Service animals are one such way that some local folks can benefit from their presence. They offer companionship, safety and comfort to people in all sorts of situations.
However, some folks push the envelope and may only need a regular pet rather than a service animal.
I have a brother who insisted he needed a service animal, so he applied for the paperwork needed to claim his pet as a “service animal” thus allowing it to go everywhere with him.
The problem is that my brother doesn’t need a service animal and, besides that, I don’t think his chimpanzee should go everywhere with him. For starters, the primate is scary, even if it is dressed in a football jersey and jeans.
Sure, it can help with the dishes but that thing is capable of ripping your face off if it just wakes up in a bad mood, and any animal that resembles Bigfoot looks stupid on a leash. My brother insists the creature is needed for his piece of mind and also offers companionship.
I bet that will change real quick when a judge throws both of them in jail after the ape tosses a neighbor around or steals a horse and goes joyriding while wielding a firearm. It’s apparent he’s never seen Planet of the Apes.
I knew someone who swore she needed to go everywhere with her service turtle. That is not exactly an interactive animal, and I find it hard to believe it would protect her as turtles are big scaredy-cats and duck into their shells when ya just look at them. It can’t do anything for her in a timely manner, and now I know why she’s late everywhere she goes.
Someone I went to school with years ago claimed Willey, his service weasel, needed to go with him everywhere he went. He used to take that beady-eyed thing to the gym three times a week. It pooped all over the equipment and, after a two-month membership to the gym, neither one of them looked any more buffed than before they started going.
He didn’t need a service weasel because my former classmate is a weasel and capable of keeping himself company.
Service pets are for folks who really benefit from the animal’s help in one way or another – not for people like my neighbor’s sister, who uses her donkey as a service animal. She walks that thing to the grocery store and loads it up with bags of food and diet soda so she doesn’t have to carry the items herself.
If you’ve ever seen her shop at a mall for shoes, you’d know she doesn’t need the help as she’s quite capable. Even Jesus’ mother didn’t register their donkey.
I can’t help but wonder why it’s so easy to register a pet these days. I’m just saying that maybe some folks need only a regular pet, and some not even that.
My friend often complains that she can’t take her messy, somewhat smelly husband anywhere. Perhaps she should just register him, then folks won’t mind him being around.
Anngee Quinones-Belian lives in Murphy. She loves humor and believes the world needs more of it. Email her at anngeeq@gmail.com.