Introducing Wally The Emotional Support Alligator
Wild video from LOVE Park in Philadelphia taken Friday shows the child, trailed by the reptile, which lays on its stomach to cool off in a puddle.
The alligator, named Wally, was wearing a collar that also labeled it an emotional support pet.
He was apparently very friendly to others in the park, and let strangers pet him.
Wally is something of a local icon in York, Pennsylvania, which he calls home, the Philly Voice reported.
His owner, Joie Henney, is a reptile lover who has multiple gators. It was not clear who was walking Wally on Friday.
“I went through a real hard depression and he brought me out of it,” Henney once said in an interview about Wally.
“My doctor wanted to give me anti-depression medicine and I refused to take it,” the man said. Instead, he chose to spend time with the gator.
Henney said Wally is federally registered as an emotional support animal, and claims alligators are easier to train than dogs.
Alright, this emotional support animal policy has gone way too far. There is an argument for a multitude of animals that can be emotional support creatures, but an alligator is not one of them. Birds and Mammals are where I draw the line on intelligent lifeforms (there is an argument for Octopuses, but I digress). There is a reason the amygdala (The base of our brain) is called "The Lizard Brain," and that's because it is in charge of fight, flight, feeding, fear, freezing up, and fornication. There is nothing in there that has empathy or any sort of support. As someone who has considered registering their 120 lb American Bulldog as an emotional support animal so it would be easy to house or take him on the Subway, a straight-up alligator is too far. I was super surprised to see this gator without any electrical tape around his jaws. Like Alligators are completely unpredictable. Crocodilians evolved millions of years ago, even before dinosaurs existed; no human intervention is going to change the hardwiring of a cold-blooded killer.
There are ways to placate Alligators, but that's nowhere close to domestication. Placating animals to keep them docile is a slippery slope; many remember Travis the Xanned up Chimp. One day placating won't work. Most likely, this gator is subject to the tricks all alligator wrestlers use... Keeping them chill... literally. Most alligator wrestlers place the gator in the shade in a cool pool of water. Since they are cold-blooded, the alligators get into a dazed lethargic state. The heat dependence on the sun from these animals does make them easier to control. But one day, that gator is going to get a little extra energy from your body warmth while snuggling and bite your face off.