Get ready, moms and dads.

Many of you will soon be saddled with pets you don’t want.

Why?

Because colleges everywhere are allowing students to keep “emotional support” animals on campus. 

No, we’re not talking trained therapy dogs or service animals.

This means any mangy varmint that stressed-out college students want to cuddle with at night to relieve tension.

Hey, it’s the law!

According to the Yale Daily News:

Yale and colleges across the country have adopted policies that allow emotional support animals — not necessarily because the science backs it up, but because the schools have to, in order to comply with the Fair Housing Act. 

The act states that “persons with disabilities may request a reasonable accommodation for any service animal, including an emotional support animal.” The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 prohibits discrimination based on disability.

“Those two laws are basically the reason we weren’t inspired to create the program,” said (one Yale official). “We were mandated to create the program. All universities have to follow those laws.”

Violating the laws can be costly. In 2013, Grand Valley State University paid $40,000 in a settlement after a student sued the university for preventing her from keeping an emotional support guinea pig on campus. Two years later, two students received $140,000 in a settlement with the University of Nebraska at Kearney after they were denied “reasonable accommodations” to keep two emotional support dogs. A similar suit at Kent State University cost the school $145,000 the following year.

This is a terrible idea and a peculiar interpretation of the law. Frankly, students who can’t get through college without mutts in the dorm need to go to commuter schools. They're simply not ready to leave home.

Worse, since students can't bring emotional support animals to class, dorms will essentially turn into kennels. Think about it. The smell. The barking. The allergies. The excrement. 

And here’s a prediction: Once the kids graduate from college, they’ll find that their stress levels miraculously disappear and that cat/dog/pot belly pig is no longer needed for their mental health.

It's going to wind up at mom and dad’s, along with cartons of college books and papers. 

Don’t doubt me. 

The arrival of the unwanted emotional support critter will begin as a just a temporary measure. 

Next thing you know, you’re walking dogs you never wanted, buying special food because of their dental problems and paying their vet bills.

How do I know?

These two:

Their story is a long one. And they were not emotional support poodles. But they were my daughter’s darlings 11 years ago and now they’re my little diaper-wearing dependents.

You’ve been warned.