Joe Exotic’s Emotional Support – The Weird Side of the Internet

Joe Exotic’s Emotional Support – The Weird Side of the Internet – by Liam Sweeny.

Emotional support animals are kind of a controversy, right? I mean, it’s easy to understand. An animal can help people with anxiety, mood disorders, other neurodivergent conditions handle daily aspects of life they struggle with, like getting on a plane or waiting in line at the DMV. We as a society are pretty understanding (mostly) with service animals like seeing-eye dogs being allowed in places where pets ordinarily wouldn’t be. But a seeing-eye dog can keep their owner from crossing a busy street. They’re trained to do a bunch of things, and people aren’t supposed to pet them (yes, I’m talking to you, Andy.)

But I’ve seen ads that say “get around your landlord’s ‘no-pets’ policy’ by getting your pet certified as an emotional support animal.” And yes, I know that everything can be abused, but that one’s on the nose. But the thing about emotional support animals is that, legally, the concept is vague, and just about any animal can be used. So I covererd a story once about a Florida man’s “emotional support alligator.”

So here’s the latest. And I’m sort of torn. Karl Mitchell is a fully disabled vet with PTSD. And he has an emotional support animal. A few. They’re tigers. In fact, he said he rescued some of them from Joe Exotic’s place. Mitchell was being evicted, and despite initially being cooperative, he ended up getting into a physical altercation with a deputy. And of course, the tigers were taken.

Thing is, he had them for ten years. If they were going to come down on him over having tigers, this should be super old news. And can you train Joe Exotic tigers to be emotional support animals, or was Mitchel throwing everything at the wall to see what stuck?

Personally, I don’t give a sh*t what people do. But then again, I’m not allergic to emotional support Kimodo dragons.Joe Exotic’s Em

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