Christy Reed isn’t counting her chickens. But Orange City, a tidy little Dutch town of 6,267, is couning and they are not happy about it.
As Ms. Reed’s flock increased to 25, it got the authority’s attention and she was informed it was not legal to keep livestock within city limits. Get rid of the chickens, they said or pay the fine.
But Reed insists her chickens are not livestock. They all have names and personalities. They are her friends. Most importantly, her chickens are her therapists. Reed has suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, since the death of her husband in 2008. To help ease her condition, Reed acquired a few chickens and had them officially certified as “emotional support animals”.
Under Iowa’s disability law and the federal Americans with Disabilities Act, people diagnosed with disabilities have a right to be accompanied by a service animal (like a seeing eye dog) or an emotional support animal as long as it meets certain requirements and is certified by a medical professional. Iowa law requires landlords to allow a tenant’s emotional support animal (ESA) regardless of their “no pets” rule in a rental agreement and landlords must wave any customary pet deposit. Disability Rights Legal Advocate Dominick J. Latino states that emotional support animals are “a life-saving asset for hundreds of thousands of Americans,” with anxiety and depression, making it easier for them to perform everyday tasks.
What kinds of ESA’s are there? How about a miniature horse? In 2020, Ronica Froese of Croton, Michigan took her 26-inch-tall horse named Fred on a TSA flight to Ontario, California. Froese, who suffers from Crohn’s disease, sometimes struggles to walk.
“So if I drop something, Fred will pick it up and hand it to me.” She practiced giving Fred rides in her truck, accompanied by loud jet recordings to prepare him for the flight. “Everybody loved him,” she said. “Lots of passengers were amazed how well he behaved.”
In 2016, Carla Fitzgerald, who suffers from PTSD, took her ESA duck, known by Daniel Turducken on a short flight from Charlotte, NC to Asheville without incident. “Everybody just took notice of him and fell in love,” she reported. “I think his little red shoes and Captain America diaper were also really well received.” (Especially that last part, I bet.)
Not every ESA-accompanied flight goes well. Delta Airlines reports that in the past few years, incidents of ESAs biting, urinating and defecating has spiked 84 percent. On a Delta flight to Atlanta in 2017, a passenger was trapped against his window seat and mauled by a 70-pound emotional support dog, requiring 28
stitches.
I sympathize with an airline passenger needing their ESA. But, speaking as a person who gets airsick veryeasily, I’m not sure I could handle an emotional support kangaroo hopping up and down the aisle as we hit air pockets over Denver.It would seem Orange City needs to determine if only Ms. Reed’s original chickens are genuine emotional support animals or if her hatchlings are entitled to a kind of birthright citizenship and become automatic ESA’s.
Every May, Orange City’s tulip festival features children in traditional Dutch outfits with brooms sweeping the streets. It’s unpleasant enough they have to sweep up soggy cigarette butts and candy wrappers–without having to clean up after Christy Reed’s incontinent therapists.