How large and how legitimate is their claim? Maybe it's just a product of irrational fear and ignorance, and knowing more about animal behavior and training they would be able to overcome their irrational revulsion and be content with animal presence? I don't see any rational reason to mind somebody having a dog or a turtle in my presence. Of course, there are can be religious etc. objections - but I don't think anybody would insist on going into a mosque or a synagogue or a kosher restaurant with a pig. At least if they try there would be completely reasonable to refuse them. But absent such matters, and other problems like obvious disturbing behavior (noise, smell, etc.) - why not? Why would you even call it "interaction" - after all, if you go on a bus with 50 strangers, you don't really "interact" with them. Why being in the same room with a dog be "interacting"?
>Maybe it's just a product of irrational fear and ignorance
Hardly.
One - liability. Your insurance may prevent you from allowing dogs. Or may up your premiums.
Two - risk. Is there a risk letting a pet in? Yea. The risk it will bite, be loud, shit/piss on the floor, or annoy other customers or carry disease. Many businesses feel this is an unnecessary risk with not much benefit.
Very few people are irrationally fearful of animals. Businesses are just risk adverse. Theres can be a lot of cost and not much benefit.
>But absent such matters, and other problems like obvious disturbing behavior
People don't bother training their dogs or using common sense and curiosity. If they did this wouldn't be an issue, dogs could just come and go in appropriate places. Since people won't do that we have the majority of businesses who don't care to have them on the premises.
Ever heard of the expression "this is why we can't have nice things?"
But you are 100% free to go open up your own non food establishment and invite all the animals you want in.
We're back to normative with the word "legitimate." I can provide reasons why I or someone else might have certain preferences, but I'm not up to the task of proclaiming which reasons are "legitimate."
OK, fine, but if we talk about pure preference, I don't see why preference not to be in the same room as a dog is better than preference to have a dog around. I.e. if somebody say "but your dog can bite me", we can talk about it and I can alleviate their concerns and maybe we'll arrive to agreement that would be ok with us both. But if somebody just says "I hate dogs and won't tolerate the sight of them!" then there's no way to go anywhere with that, and then I would question why their hate has to have more weight than my preference for canine companionship. Because the article and some other people sound like the preference is a given, but I question - why is that?
> I don't see why preference not to be in the same room as a dog is better than preference to have a dog around.
I also don't see why it's "better" in some objective or universal sense. A "preference" is already a feeling that one thing is better than another, so it's weird to talk about one preference being better than another, at least without some overarching goal like maximizing equality or maximizing utility.
