SF Weekly Takes on the Whole "Service Animal" Mess
You've probably noticed that there are a great many "service animals" on Muni and elsewhere these days, and this is due in large part to the laxness with which the City's policy on service dogs is enforced, and due to the fear of legal reprisals on the part of Muni drivers, landlords and others who don't want to end up in federal court on discrimination charges. SF Weekly's Joe Eskanazi takes a thorough look this week at the dicey issue of service dogs and the many and sundry pets masquerading as service animals on public transportation and in SROs all over town.
First we have bipolar Charles Esler whose vicious little bitch Chihuahua Tita has chased a woman across Dolores Park, lunged at a Social Security Office employee, and bit Joe Eskanazi himself while he sat in Mr. Esler's apartment. Despite being ill-trained and ill-humored, Tita is a legally recognized service animal who is a "vital component" of Mr. Esler's psychiatric treatment.
The article goes on to profile several other of the 500 legally permitted service animals around town -- including Cosmie Silfa's iguana Skippy, and a group of hamsters who serve to alleviate one woman's pain over her inability to conceive children -- and to touch on precedents like "the Pookie case" that have landlords running scared of contesting any tenants' claims with regard to service animals. Eskanazi also points to the epidemic of service dog impostors on public transportation, whose owners have simply slapped on "a little coat," a red-cross leash, or printed an easily procured service animal patch off the internet, simply because they like having the dogs with them at all times.
But the kicker is saved for last: the story of alcoholic mess Heather Morris and her 125-pound Italian mastiff Fiona, who has been officially registered as a "vicious and dangerous dog," has attacked most of her neighbors, and bitten a 62-year-old woman on the breast while the dog was tied up, unmuzzled, to a park bench. Morris -- who also keeps multiple rats and turtles in her Bernal Heights home and claims they are vital to her treatment now that she stopped taking her anti-psychotics -- is determined to get Fiona licensed as a service animal so that she may threaten and injure citizens on trains and buses across the city until someone finally slaps this woman or gets the dog put down.