Hello again and welcome back to savvy psychologist. I'm your host Dr. Ellen Hendrickson and every week I'll help you meet life's challenges with evidence-based research, a sympathetic ear, and zero judgment.

They may not be lions and tigers and bears, but they are dogs and cats and bunnies.

Not to mention all sorts of other critters.

Who are they?

They're emotional support animals, and they're becoming more and more common on

planes in college dorms in restaurants and elsewhere in public life. So this week by

request from an anonymous listener, we'll explain exactly what emotional support

animals are and whether or not you really have to sit next to one at your favorite restaurant.

So a couple of years ago, a reporter for the New Yorker demonstrated just how fuzzy public understanding is regarding emotional support animals by toting five different fake emotional support animals through New York City, though mercifully not all at the same time.

So on her forays, she claimed to be comforted, in turn, by a 15-pound turtle on a leash, a

four and a half foot tall alpaca, a turkey, a pig in a stroller, and a snake.

And you can insert your own snakes on a plane joke here.

She brought them into fancy restaurants through airline security, into a museum,

and onto a crowded New York bus.

She showed how easy it was, for a fee,

to obtain a letter from a therapist,

ID cards, and all source of emotional support

animal paraphernalia. Now all this gives a bad name to people who are

disabled and need a trained service animal as well as emotional support animal owners who

act ethically.

It's much like people who fake an allergy simply due to personal taste.

To make things more complicated, no government agency oversees service animals, much less emotional support

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