I (29F) just moved into a new apartment and hosted a small housewarming party last weekend. I invited about 10 close friends, including my friend “Emily” (31F), who has an emotional support dog. I made it clear in the group chat that I’d love for everyone to come, but no pets this time because I wanted to keep it simple and relaxed for the first gathering.
Emily messaged me privately and asked if she could bring her dog anyway because she feels anxious in social situations and her dog helps her stay calm. I sympathize with her, but I still said no. I’m mildly allergic to dogs (not severely, but I get sniffly), and I had just cleaned the apartment. Plus, one of the other guests is afraid of dogs due to a childhood trauma.
Emily got upset and said I was being inconsiderate and excluding her. She didn’t come to the party and hasn’t responded to my texts since. A couple of friends said I should have made an exception for her because her dog is “basically medical,” but others agreed that my house = my rules.
I feel bad because I never wanted her to feel unwelcome, but I also feel like I had the right to set boundaries in my own home.
AITA?
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I (29F) just moved into a new apartment and hosted a small housewarming party last weekend. I invited about 10 close friends, including my friend “Emily” (31F), who has an emotional support dog. I made it clear in the group chat that I’d love for everyone to come, but no pets this time because I wanted to keep it simple and relaxed for the first gathering.
Emily messaged me privately and asked if she could bring her dog anyway because she feels anxious in social situations and her dog helps her stay calm. I sympathize with her, but I still said no. I’m mildly allergic to dogs (not severely, but I get sniffly), and I had just cleaned the apartment. Plus, one of the other guests is afraid of dogs due to a childhood trauma.
Emily got upset and said I was being inconsiderate and excluding her. She didn’t come to the party and hasn’t responded to my texts since. A couple of friends said I should have made an exception for her because her dog is “basically medical,” but others agreed that my house = my rules.
I feel bad because I never wanted her to feel unwelcome, but I also feel like I had the right to set boundaries in my own home.
AITA?
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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I asked my friend Emily not to bring her emotional support dog to my housewarming party because I have a mild allergy and another guest has a fear of dogs. I realize that by refusing, I may have hurt her feelings or made her feel excluded, especially since her dog helps her cope with anxiety. I understand that some people see her dog as a medical necessity, so maybe I should have tried harder to accommodate her needs instead of strictly enforcing the no-pets rule. That’s why I think I might be the asshole.
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Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.
NTA. Not only is it your house, your rules, but you have an allergy to dogs. It’s not like you’re having a picnic at a park. It’s your own home, an enclosed space in which you should absolutely be able to breathe easily and freely.
Emily is being selfish and inconsiderate, assuming you would put your own health needs aside for her. She should have recognized this wouldn’t work out rather than get upset at you. She needs to show more consideration for other people’s needs.
NTA – you are allergic, another guest is afraid of dogs and you do not know whether it would behave itself in your newly cleaned apartment. You have not banned the dog forever, you simply wanted an hassle-free, one-off celebration of moving in. As long as you were understanding on her feeling unable to come, you did nothing wrong. “Emily” expecting everyone else to accommodate her at the expense of others, instead of realizing that there will be situations where she will have to miss out because of her social anxiety, is entitled. Whilst emotional support animals can be helpful, they can also become a permanent crutch that prevents growth. Emily only needed to ask privately and then left it at that when you declined. Again you were not banning the dog from ever being in your presence; this is more about her insecurities, you were not being unsupportive, you were not inconsiderate. In fact, you were considerate to everyone and she ought to have understood that. To be blunt, both an allergy and a phobia of dogs outweigh wanting to bring one for comfort. If it were a pattern of exclusion that would be one thing, yet you are presenting an one-off.
NTA, there’s no such thing as “emotional support” dogs. There are medically prescribed assistance dogs (for blind people, epilepsy detection…etc etc) and there are pets. This is a pet.
NTA.
If it was something like a guide dog or one of those dogs that alerts to seizures you might be TA.
I don’t see emotional support dogs in the same category as those. While they are helpful to their owners they aren’t essential.
NTA.
Service animals get a reason to come in public businesses, people aren’t required to allow them into their private space like their home. This dog is not medical equipment, it’s an ESA.
Emotional support animals have no reason to be in a public business, and absolutely do not have rights to come into your home after you’ve said no. The fact that you are allergic is your reason (as well as the other person that has trauma related to dogs), but you don’t need a reason to refuse an emotional support animal from coming into your private space.
If Emily cannot attend a private party without relying on her dog as a crutch where the party is all people she knows or has known, she made need to look at a different therapist that can help her work through being able to handle familiar people in a private social setting when she already knows them.
a) You’re allergic to dogs, and a guest is triggered by dogs.
b) “Emotional support animals” are not trained medical dogs; they’re pets. Folks have survived in civilized company for centuries without them. Emily is acting entitled.
c) Your house, your rules.
NTA.
No, this isn’t “basically medical”. Emotional support animals are not the same as service animals and they aren’t going to be allowed in most public places that don’t allow pets outside of housing which they are protected by.
What is medical is you being allergy and someone having trauma from past experiences with dogs. Her desire to bring her dog everywhere doesn’t outweigh other people’s needs either. Either way at the end of the day your house, your rules.
But it’s not medical. If it were medical it would be a service dog. NTA. She’s an adult and needs to learn some resiliency. You can’t take your dog everywhere.
NTA, all pets are “emotional support animals”. Even if she had a medically necessary animal, which this isn’t, you would be within your right not to have it in your home for the reasons stated (allergies, other guests’ phobias, and so on). Your home is not a public establishment.
Emily is being entitled and childish. Lots of people have social anxiety, myself included. If she wants to use an animal as a crutch, fine, but she doesn’t have the right to bring it absolutely anywhere she wants to go.
NTA. If you can’t handle a house with 10 people in it, then get real help
You can refuse her request and she can stop being friends with you. You make a choice you live with the consequences.
NTA. One thing you gotta know when getting a dog qualified to be an emotional support dog, even if it’s just as trained as a physical support dog, you have to realize you can’t take it everywhere. If you can’t take the dog, stay home, or go elsewhere. It’s not an excluding thing. It’s standards where animals aren’t supposed to be unless absolutely required for ones mobility, not sanity. While I do see the use in ES dogs, so many people just get an online “badge” for their common pets that its become a joke and isn’t seen as anything but an attempt at a free pass even though ES dogs should be up to the standard of the other service dogs before being called as such.
NTA. It’s your home, not a public place.
Yes you are!
Emotional support animal is not a service dog. She and her dog can stay home.
Sounds like Emily has gotten very accustomed to making herself and her needs the center of the universe, everyone else be damned. If she didn’t want to come without her dog, she should have just politely declined. NTA
NTA. Your house, your rules. Also, your party in your house. Plus, you have an allergy. Yes, it’s mild, but who wants to be sniffly at their own party? And, even more important, one of your invited guests has dog trauma. That guests trauma trumps Emily’s ‘support dog’.
And, no, that dog is not ‘basically medical’. An emotional support animal doesn’t actually require any training to be considered one. It just needs to be declared one. Even businesses can turn away support animals like this if they want to. Pretty much everything trumps an emotional support animal in such cases. It would be different if it was an actual, trained, dog like a seeing eye dog, those are actually considered medical devices, and will trump certain other things. But people can usually go without an emotional support animal for a while, especially when surrounded by people they’re comfortable with, even in an unfamiliar place.
Emily was free to not come if she refused to attend without her dog. But you are not obligated to allow a dog into your home against your wishes, especially with an allergy, even a mild one, and especially not when one of your guests has a known dog-related trauma. If you’d allowed the dog, I doubt your other guest would have come, so you’d still have been one guest down, but you’d also have had to deal with your allergy throughout the night instead of simply having fun, and probably felt the need to deep clean a just cleaned apartment as soon as it was over, too. Easier for Emily to just not come if she refuses to leave her dog for a couple hours. You didn’t exclude her, she was clearly welcome to attend without the dog, Emily excluded herself. Inviting her dog to come along would have outright excluded the guest with trauma, though, as that’s much more serious in my opinion, and probably would have partially excluded you from your own party in your own home, as well.
If she can’t function with her dog, she can stay home.
So many of these questions, you are not an AH because it’s your house, your party but you are excluding a friend who asked you if they can bring their dog because it helps her when she is anxious. You saying no to that is basically saying no you can’t come. So if you are good with that and how that would make her feel then all good.
NTA.
You have rights to set rules and boundaries in your own home, ESPECIALLY after you had no doubt done a huge initial cleaning of the place when you took possession of it.
NTA. I will never understand the audacity of people who think they can make the rules of your home. Your house, your rules. You do not need to explain yourself.
NTA
NTA – dogs don’t belong everywhere, and I’m saying this as someone with an “emotional support” dog for anxiety.
As someone who has an ESA with all the paperwork and everything it PISSES ME OFF when people try to act like their ESAs are service animals. THEY ARE NOT SERVICE ANIMALS. They don’t have the same legal rights, are not allowed to come everywhere, and people insisting that they can makes it harder for people with actual service animals and people like me trying to file paperwork with housing/landlords
These people bringing dogs everywhere stories are getting old now.
ESH
While it’s your place and you rules and you are free to say the dog can’t come – you also need to respect that you are for intents excluding her from the party by saying so, and that you are putting your “mild allergy and recent cleaning” above her obvious severe social anxiety. The other guest is the only argument with weight if you ask me, and then it was a choice between two friends. You have to accept that you did make her feel unwelcome by the way to said it – whether you meant to or not.
That said – people with specific needs will have to accept that these things happen and that they are not always intentional slights. For a friend I’d give the benefit of doubt and talk to you again after making my point.
I hope you can have a good and mutually respectful discussion around this. Then invite her to another get together WITH dog (there are simple antihistamines you can take) and avoid the other dog-adverse guest this time.
NTA
Service dog handler here! Even if her dog was a task trained service dog with fantastic public access training and well groomed (or non shedding) to limit your allergies, you are well within your right to say no! Your house is a private place, not public and therefore not required to follow public access laws. (Big fat, I’m in the US and going off of US laws, things could be wildly different where you live.) I love my dog! He makes my ability to function normally so much easier. He is literal medical equipment. And yet he still doesn’t go everywhere with me. I have other systems in place for situations where I can’t or simply don’t want to bring him.
When arguing access issues service dog handlers like to compare service dogs to wheelchairs, walkers, oxygen tanks, etc. So let’s do that now! My house has no entrance without stairs. If I had a friend in a wheelchair they wouldn’t be able to come over without assistance getting inside. I would happily invite them and explain the situation and then it’s up to them to come up with alternatives (I’m happy to help, but I don’t know their comforts or limits) to get inside and hang out or choose not to come. It’s no different with a service dog, private homes are private, you don’t have to allow anything you aren’t comfortable with. And this dog isn’t even a service dog! My guess is it’s actually an unhealthy codependent relationship that would benefit from her learning some new skills to manage her anxiety.
Now, unfortunately not being in the wrong doesn’t mean this won’t have issues within your friend group. Hold your ground and explain your side while being empathetic, and good luck.
NTA
>Emily got upset and said I was being inconsiderate and excluding her.
So Emily thinks it’s OK to be inconsiderate and exclude OTHER people… Emily shit on you and another friend for her convenience. Ouch. You need to rethink your Emily relationship.
ESAs are pets, not “basically medical”.
I love my birds very much, but that doesn’t mean they are or should be welcome everywhere, and it’s not other people’s problem. And I am literally using one bird as a bit of a “hearing ear” bird, and currently working on that training, but until I can get her certified, she’s a pet.
NTA.
NTA, but that doesn’t make your friend wrong either. She’s allowed to be hurt and angry about what you did, just like you’re allowed to not allow her dog into your house.
NTA; especially if you’re allergic. if the only issue in play was your other friend being afraid of dogs, then perhaps the answer would be different and it would be more a complex situation as it would involve you placing one friend’s mental health over the other’s. but you had just cleaned your apt, you’re allergic, and you wanted a relaxed event with no pets there. that’s more than reasonable enough.
while it’s not a justification, perhaps the reason for emily taking offence is that she focused too much on the point about your other friend being afraid of dogs and thought you were choosing your other friend over her. maybe if you had left out that specific point, it might have caused less ruffled feathers, but nonetheless you’re absolutely not at fault here, neither is your friend. emily is being a dick for holding a grudge over this; she had every right to not attend and could’ve left the situation there with no hard feelings.
It’s your house you get to decide what’s allowed. Your friend can stay home if your rules are a problem for her.
NTA. This wasn’t just a “I don’t like dogs” scenario, this was “I don’t want to be allergic to my carpet” scenario. She has medical needs but so do you. They conflict. Oh well. That’s not your fault and you can’t be expected to set your own needs aside for hers.
And your allergy isn’t medical?
People need to stop relying on ESAs so much in order to function in normal day to day life. People need to learn different coping skills and use exposure therapy and learn not to be so afraid of these sensations.
NTA.
An emotional support animal is NOT a service animal, and does not have the right to public access that service animals do. Emotional support animals are for the home environment.