Totally agree that charging extra rent is valid. I just mean it isn’t up to us to decide what the rules are.
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Thankfully in 3 years I have not had a guest show up with a animal to my listing that does not allow them. I have 2 cabins on one property, one allows dogs (no other species other than human or canine) I will cross that bridge if and when I come to it.
RR
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I decide what I am going to charge per night, the number of guests, whether to host guests with no reviews; I decide whether or not I allow children, smoking, guns, etc.
Yet, you feel it isn’t up to us to decide what the rules are (for pets).
I’m a stronger supporter of AirBNB than most on this forum. I would not object to a valid Service dog BUT when it comes to questionable use of faux designations, I follow the advice on this forum on how to enforce the rules I set.
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It’s up to you to decide if you allow pets, but not if you allow emotional support animals. Regardless of if you think they are faux designations, they are animals protected under fair housing laws.
Emotional support animals are indeed protected for housing, but not for short-term rentals. Hotels must accept service dogs (per the ADA), but are under no obligation to accept emotional support animals. Quite frankly we shouldn’t be either (and we travel with a service dog). There are a bunch of reasons for this:
A disability prevents a person from functioning in society. Service dogs are there to compensate for that disability. It is similar to a wheelchair - they are needed to allow a person to function.
While I grant that emotional support animals have a real purpose and a rightful place in society, they are not there for a disability. (and if there is a disability, then a service dog may be appropriate).
Then there’s the training. My wife’s dog is fairly typical: training starts at 6 weeks of age, and goes until about 20 months of standardized training before starting individualized training for another 2-4 months. Full time training, test after test, and approximately a 60% rejection rate (dogs that fail tests “fabulous failures” as one outfit calls them, generally become exceptionally well trained pets).
That is very different from emotional support animals, with no training, and more importantly no testing for agression and good-citizen behaviors.
Airbnb is requiring us to accept untrained, untested dogs. We haven’t faced this yet, but one extreme fear I have is that an untrained aggressive dog attacks our service dog (who is trained to do nothing in that case). More than one service dog that I know of has been unable to perform its duties after being attacked. I would rather lose our Airbnb than accept that risk.
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That’s one of the big reasons I’ve never accepted service dogs, which I can do because I have a home share. My own dog is a 70 pound alpha female and she has attacked other female dogs before, although she never really hurts them, it’s just a big show of dominance where she forces them onto their back, stands over them, bares her teeth and makes threatening growls. You expect to see blood and fur flying, but she’s never bitten another dog, human, cat, or anything.
But if she did that to someone’s service dog, it would be awful.
Here’s something I’ve wondered that maybe you could answer. If another person or another dog tried to attack a service dog’s human, would the service dog fend them off?
No - a service dog is tested for non-aggression again and again, and is definitely not trained to defend (in fact, should miserably fail any defense training, since their temperament is supposed to be non-aggressive). The ADA specifically states that guarding is not a task that service dogs are used for.
That said, service dogs are still dogs, and are generally extremely attached to their handler, so some dogs undoubtedly would defend their handler.
-Andy
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Thanks for the answer. It’s kind of what I figured, but wasn’t sure.
In the UK they have documentation. half way down this page:
https://www.assistancedogs.org.uk/law/
They may be “real”, but are not recognised legally in many countries outside the US, for example the UK, or where I am now, in Spain.
Well, actually it is. In my scenario we have a no pets policy, and while not a pet, a service dog is still an animal and my OH is allergic to their dander. We have a shared entrance to the building therefore our policy is rigidly enforced.
JF