We’re Headed For a Showdown Over Emotional Support Animals

Shelly Yang/TNS via ZUMA

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Over at Vox, Brian Resnick interviews Molly Crossman, an expert on emotional support animals. She confirms what an awful lot of people only mutter under their breath:

Resnick: Overall, what are the strongest claims we can make about animals and mental distress?

Crossman: Well, I’ll qualify it first by saying that most of the research in this area is on dogs. There is some on horses as well, and a few studies on other species. But in terms of the dog studies, we can say that, probably, interactions with animals don’t make stress-related symptoms worse. So that’s good. It also seems they convey sort of small to medium reductions in stress and stress-related symptoms. That’s the strongest thing I’m willing to say….We actually don’t know that it’s the animals specifically that are producing these small to medium reductions in stress. It might be other components of the interventions in which they’re evaluated.

So: they don’t make things worse. They might make things slightly better, but we can’t even say that with any clarity.

Then there’s stuff like this, which happened last night. There’s a backlash brewing against emotional support animals, and their supporters better figure out how to address it before state legislatures start doing it for them.

WE'LL BE BLUNT:

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate