I AM GETTING REALLY TIRED OF HER CRAP.

If you’ve followed us for any significant amount of time, you know that I have an enormous amount of disdain for Ashley Judd, who is one of the most insufferable, self-involved, self-promoting, self-important people on the planet. The fact that so many people have fallen for the new-age nonsense that she endlessly spews is endlessly fascinating to me.

Her horrendous politics notwithstanding, one of the things that makes me angriest about Ashley Judd is her insistence that she is entitled to carry her 15 year old cockapoo around with her – EVEN WHERE DOGS ARE NOT ALLOWED. She has defended this by posting various links on Twitter to DOJ rules about service animals, which are totally not applicable to her or to her dog, and she’s also defended this by claiming that her dog is a psychological support animal, which is irrelevant to being able to have a dog in public spaces (such as basketball stadiums). She is completely clueless about the very distinct differences between those two categories of animals. Ultimately, she hurts people with legitimate disabilities and with legitimate service animals, and I have a huge problem with that.

I wrote about that here, and we also devoted a column about this in the Indy Star.

But I don’t think I explained this nearly as well as Patty Spitler does in this clip. She is speaking on behalf of ICAN (Indiana Canine Assistance Network) which is an organization I am forever indebted to because that’s where my Elladog came from. Check out this PERFECT explanation.

So let’s just review, shall we?

A service dog’s job is to complete a task for a person with a disability. An emotional support dog is one who makes a person feel good, which is what BASICALLY EVERY DOG DOES for their respective owners, if you want to get technical about it.

So what can you legally ask a person who claims to have a service dog? Two things. First, you can ask if their dog is a service dog. Second, you can ask what specific task the dog is trained to do. That’s it. You can’t ask what disability the person has.  You can only ask about the task the dog is TRAINED to perform to assist with the disability.  If the dog is a true service dog, then it’s required to have four feet on the floor, and it’s required to be focused on the owner and the task it has been trained to complete.

Sooooo, yeah.  About that.

FAIL. On all counts. That dog doesn’t have four paws on the floor.  That dog is not focused on its owner or on a task.  That dog is nearly comatose.

“But Mock,” you might insist, “Maybe Ashley’s dog is an emotional support animal and not a service dog!” Ok – so here’s the thing – needing Emotional Support is not considered a disability by the ADA. What that means, is that you can bring an emotional support dog on flights and you can get housing complexes to accept an emotional support animal. But that’s where your rights to have your dog with you end. Basketball stadiums? Nope. Restaurants? Nope. All the other places Ashley has insisted on bringing her dog? Nope.

“But Mock,” you might insist, “Maybe Ashley Judd is legitimately insane with a clinical ADA-recognized disability related to her mental health!” Ok – so please help me understand what task her dog is completing for her in the photo above. Please show me the evidence that the dog is focused on her and the task it has been trained to complete for her. Please help me understand why, in so many photos where Ashley’s got her dog with her, she is CARRYING IT and it’s basically asleep. So much for four-feet-on-the-floor, right?

Which means that no matter how you slice this, no matter if you claim it’s a service animal or whether you claim it’s an emotional support animal, Ashley Judd is gaming the system. And she needs to be called out, because she is HURTING PEOPLE WITH ACTUAL DISABILITIES.

And as the mom of a kid with severe spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy, and a dog from the Indiana Canine Assistance Network, and as someone who knows the intensive training that legitimate service dogs have to go through, I HAVE A PROBLEM with Ashley Judd gaming the system with a dog that hasn’t been trained to do much except be carried around while it tries to stay conscious.

Naturally, Ashley has blocked us on Twitter, because I’m sure she considers us to be internet raping her or something whenever we criticize her. So if you want to tweet her this column, feel free. Maybe she’ll finally learn that what she’s doing is WRONG.

GAWD.  Raise your hand if your pet “helps you cope” with whatever mental issues you might be having at any given time.  Everyone?  Yeah.  Thought so.