Mini Horses..... (legal, landlords, average, contractor)
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... Real service animals are actually quite rare. I get a lot of applicants with untrained pitbull "service dogs", though. I hear from a couple of them with every vacancy.
I agree.
I have gotten a bunch of people telling me about their 'emotional support' animals.
In this state, there is no law to define what an 'emotional support' animal is, or what [if any] training they have.
I have been in conversations where the consensus is that tenants are trying to use the sympathy of a LL to argue that their untrained lizard, snake, or ferret is legally required to be allowed into an apartment.
In my 30 years of working with people with disabilities not one has ever had a horse as a service animal. Service dogs are well trained and amazing. Besides helping the blind they also help people with stability issues and use them to keep from falling. Some can alert people to a pending seizure so they can lay down so they don’t hurt themselves, etc. All the fake service dogs are really hurting the legitimate ones.
I have gotten a bunch of people telling me about their 'emotional support' animals.
In this state, there is no law to define what an 'emotional support' animal is, or what [if any] training they have.
I have been in conversations where the consensus is that tenants are trying to use the sympathy of a LL to argue that their untrained lizard, snake, or ferret is legally required to be allowed into an apartment.
Maine's definition certainly allows for a lizard, snake or ferret to be legally classified as an Assistance Animal for the purpose of housing. Maine's disability laws does expand the definition of allowable animals that normally would be under the ADA for public accommodations (public spaces, businesses, hotels, etc, but not rental housing) so they can narrowly define the accepted expansion under state law. However, as it applies to rental housing under the FHA, Maine has no law that would restrict an otherwise accepted animal under federal law.
I have a friend with a mini horse as her service animal. He is truly wonderful; his size was around d the same as my large golden retriever (he does weigh more), so his size is not an issue.
He is house broken and uses a bell to notify my friend when he needs to go out and when they are out in public he has some sort of 'catchall' that he wears to help with the public freaking out.
My heart broke when my beloved service dog died from cancer when he was 12 years old. Although, I needed another SD desperately it took me a few years to get a new one (luckily I do not work or go to school so it was easier on me without a dog).
To have an service animal with a 30 year life span is truly wonderous and he is excellent as a guide.
As with any service animal it is the owner that has to ensure that the animal behaves properly and that the animal relives itself in the proper area.
How could a mini horse quality as a guide animal? That one stumps me.
My brother had guide dogs but they are well trained and very intelligent.
Mini horses actually make excellent guiding animals, just like dogs, if properly trained. They live for up to 40-some years and therefore do not pass on so early like a trained dog. They can be therapy approved like a dog. A true mini isn't bigger than a Great Dane. Ones I've seen go up to about 25 inches tall.
Would a person who needs the help of a service animal, also be able to handle the rigors and demands of caring for a horse? Do they need to hire someone to take care of the horse? Seems fairly counter productive.
For those and many more reasons, I wouldn't rent to someone with a mini guide horse. Perhaps they should be looking at places such as a farm which would be more suitable for them.
I have read some commentary on this. All of the specialized care a horse needs a mini horse needs. Farrier visits, teeth floating, de-worming.
If the recommendation is that the horse live outside with an appropriate shelter when not needed is a landlord obligated to provide that shelter?
........If the recommendation is that the horse live outside with an appropriate shelter when not needed is a landlord obligated to provide that shelter?
The landlord must allow the disabled tenant to modify a dwelling to allow for their disability but that is at the tenant's own expense, must be done by a licensed contractor, done with building permits, and must return the premises to the original state at the tenant's own expense.
So, I am going to guess that the landlord must allow the tenant to build a stable at the tenant's own expense. Built by a licensed and bonded contractor with permits.
If a tenant is going to spend that much money, they might as well buy their own house instead of renting.
By the way, horses do not live to be thirty years old, with very very few exceptions, and they most certainly do not live to be 40 years old.
If you managed to get a horse up to the age of thirty, it would be a very old, very tired senior citizen animal, and not up to long hours of work that required mental sharpness.
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