The emotional assistance animal is a type of pet that literally changes a life, making a simple friendship between owner and animal transcend and reach unique proportions and unparalleled experiences.
Care pets are complex and often confused with service pets such as guide dogs.
This mistake is understandable if you still don’t know what having an emotional assistance pet means in your daily life and the importance of it.
However, passing this and other mistakes on compromises the treatment of emotional assistance animals and creates even more difficulty in promoting this type of pet that is so important and necessary.
To explain everything about the emotional assistance animal, PETFriendly Turismo prepared this rich content in order to present all the information and answer any questions you may have. !
What is the emotional assistance animal?
The emotional assistance animal is a pet that is part of a treatment for psychological and chronic diseases, improving the tutor’s quality of life.
Once the animal is introduced to daily life, the tutor becomes daily dependent and materializes in the pet a unique comfort.
This practice is called animal-assisted therapy (AAT) and has been present in the country since 1990 and in other parts of the world for much longer. Precisely for this long time, there are studies that point to the pet responsible for significant evolutions.
According to a report from superinteressante magazine having an emotional assistance animalhelps treat autism, schizophrenia, psychosis, cerebral palsy, depression, anxiety, etc.
This is all due to the caress between tutor and pet, which creates a process in neurotransmitters linked to well-being, increasing serotonin and dopamine levels, responsible for joy.
The importance of the emotional assistance animal
The emotional assistance animal is extremely important as it guarantees a treatment that has long-term results and can be accessible to any patient as just one pet is enough. In addition, of course, to reducing the use of prescription drugs.
Considering recent data from World Health Organization (WHO), Brazil has approximately 11.5 million people with depression and all these people are fit to be a pet parent if the doctor in charge allows it.
In other words, the emotional support pet can guarantee a significant improvement for 11.5 million Brazilians who suffer from depression.
However, Brazilian legislation has not yet created specific laws in relation to this type of pet and therefore it is still difficult to see medicine adopt the practice of AAT.
What kind of animal can be considered emotional assistance?
There is no restriction on what kind of animal can be considered as an emotional support animal, so everyone is eligible, but it is worth mentioning that most airlines only accept the dog as an emotional assistance animal .
While any animal can be considered an emotional support pet, it is worth noting that animals are not simply given.
On the contrary, the pet is chosen and then undergoes a previous treatment, maximizing the affective potential of the pet with the tutor.
This all happens because before being a relationship between tutor and animal, the pet’s purpose in everyday life is therapeutic and for this reason special care is needed.
Still, this training is not limited to cats and dogs.
In fact, a common treatment is hippotherapy in the United States and Europe, where a patient is responsible for a horse and needs to carry out activities that explore educational and health sides.
In Brazil, the same treatment is approved and recommended by the Federal Council of Medicine (CFM), but due to the lack of disclosure and legislation, the practice is still considered uncommon.
What are the rights of this animal?
The social assistance animal has the right to stay by the owner’s side uninterruptedly and go on flights with the guardian free of charge.
However, destinations are limited and if the pet’s father or mother wants to take the animal with them to cities still within the country, it will be prevented due to the lack of legislation. Thus, the pet is subject to the general rules.
In another article, PETFriendly Turismo prepared a complete guide to how-to-travel-with-your-dog by plane to help you understand these concepts in more depth.
In other countries, such as Europe and the United States, the support pet has extra rights and an even greater ease to embark on transport.
In Europe, for example, the dog can board a train in a more simplified and uncomplicated way. since the Government recognizes the importance and the need that the tutor has in keeping the animal close.
How to travel with emotional assistance animals
To travel with an emotional assistance animal, you need to be aware of the airline’s travel policies and, depending on the destination, you don’t have to pay any amount.
In the same way, if you go to a destination that still doesn’t recognize the importance of the emotional support pet, your pet should certainly travel in another way, fitting in the general and standardized rules of the airlines.
In addition, it is worth mentioning that due to the lack of legislation, domestic flights do not accept assistance pets, excluding the guide dog, and therefore must board within the airline’s rules.
With all this explained, PETFriendly Turismo will show you how to travel with emotional assistance animals according to the rules of the airline that performs the service.
Latam
Latam only accepts dogs as an emotional assistance animal and the destinations or origins of the flights are Mexico and Colombia, where the domestic flight in the country is also carried out by the company.
During the flight, the pet can travel at the feet of the owner as long as it does not obstruct aisles or stay close to the emergency exits.
The company also requires the use of a collar, and good behavior, it is recommended to have a muzzle with you to prevent any unforeseen events.
The request to have the emotional support pet accepted depends on approval in a contact form, where you must attach this document, showing the tutor’s commitment to all requirements for the flight.
Laws involving the emotional assistance animal
You may have noticed that in some moments throughout this article it was said that the emotional assistance animal is prevented from evolving and reaching more people due to the lack of legislation.
In Europe, for example, the emotional support pet was accepted by several airlines, but now it is no longer possible to board directly from Brazil in this modality.
A closer example, the United States, animals leaving Brazil were accepted as emotional assistants, but the rules changed on 02/01/2021, and boarding in this modality directly from Brazil is no longer allowed.
The trend is that airlines increasingly make it difficult to board Emotional Assistance animals, forcing the tutor to carry out the Live Cargo service, which is much more profitable for them.
If new rules and measures were created to facilitate the boarding of animals, pet tourism, which predicted a turnover of 36.2 billion reais in 2019 according to Instituto Pet Brasil, could leverage even more and, especially, tutors facing serious illnesses would be encouraged to travel more often.
But what about you? What do you think about the creation of legislation that meets the emotional assistance animal? Tell us what you think in the comment fields below!
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