Service Dogs, Emotional Support Dogs and Therapy Dogs
 Service Dogs Types of Service DogsWhere You Can Take Your Service DogOther Species as Service AnimalsApproaching Service Dogs and Their Owners | Emotional Support DogsWhere You Can Take Your Emotional Support DogOther Species as Emotional Support AnimalsTherapy DogsWhere You Can Take Your Therapy DogOther Species as Therapy Animals |
About this Page
Falsehoods and Misconceptions:
A vest or any form of ID is required or has legal significance for a service dog.
A dog that provides the emotional support a person needs to venture into public places qualifies as a service dog, and the person has the right to take it into a business.
The owner of an emotional support dog has the right to take it into a business.
The owner of a therapy dog has the right to take it into a business, on an airplane, or to have it live in no-pets housing.
A mall or store is dog-friendly because people take dogs inside all the time and are not questioned.
If you have any questions that aren’t answered on this page, I’d be happy to help you.
Peter Christensen
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Service Dogs
A service dog is trained to perform tasks to assist a person who has a disability.
A person can train their dog themselves, and there is no requirement that they be associated with a service dog organization, or that they have any documentation to establish that their dog is a service dog.
However, a person with a disability might not be able to train a dog themselves, and there are many wonderful organizations that help people who can benefit from owning a service dog.
These organizations provide the training necessary for the dog to perform tasks to assist the person with their disability, as well as the training necessary to ensure that their dog will be well-behaved in public.
They also provide identification cards and service dog vests, which is helpful because most people are not familiar with the laws pertaining to service dogs and are accepting of something looking official. Though there is no requirement that the dog or person carry any special identification.
Types of Service Dogs
Because service dogs are trained to assist a person who has a disability, they are also known as assistance dogs, or known by names associated with their task.
Here are a few examples of names you might hear along with their associated task:
Guide Dog: Assist their person who is blind or visually impaired with navigation.
Hearing Dog: Alert their person who is deaf or hearing impaired to sounds such as door bells, smoke alarms and alarm clocks.
Mobility Dog: Assist their person in performing tasks, such as opening doors, picking up objects and pulling wheelchairs; or with the aid of a special harness provide stability to a person who has difficulty walking.
Seizure Alert Dog: Notify their person that a seizure is imminent so that they can take medication, call for help, or get themselves to a safe place; or assist during a seizure.
Psychiatric Service Dog: Make it possible for their person to function in a specific task or area where a non-disabled person would be capable of functioning.
It is an important distinction of a psychiatric service dog that it performs a specific task to assist its owner, as is the case with all service dogs. Here are a few examples:
1. A person suffers from PTSD and is prone to nightmares, and their service dog is trained to wake them from their nightmares. If their dog was not trained to perform this task and it was simply its calming presence that kept them from having nightmares, it would not qualify as a service dog.
2. A person suffers from PTSD and is not comfortable venturing alone into public places, and their service dog is trained to move in and stand as a barrier between them and anyone who approaches. If their dog was not trained to perform this task and it was simply its presence that helped them feel comfortable venturing into public places, it would not qualify as a service dog.
3. A person occasionally does something unconsciously which physically harms themselves, such as pulling or picking at something, and their service dog is trained to alert them to their actions. If their dog was not trained to perform this task and it was simply its calming presence that kept them from harming themselves, it would not qualify as a service dog.
Where You Can Take Your Service Dog
Businesses: In accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), a person with a disability generally has the right to be accompanied by their service dog anywhere the general public is allowed. However, a business may ask that the dog be removed from the premises if it is out of control, e.g., barking in a movie theater or begging food from patrons in a restaurant, or it poses a threat to the health or safety of others.
A business may only ask a person if their dog is a service dog required because of a disability, and what task it has been trained to perform. They may not ask the person about their disability, nor ask that the dog demonstrate its task.
You’ll find a good overview on the subject of service dogs and businesses here: ADA Business Brief
Hotels and Motels: Hotels and motels are treated as businesses. If a business normally charges guests for damage they cause, a customer may be charged for damage caused by their service animal.
No-Pets Housing: The Fair Housing Act (FHAct) allows that a person may keep a service dog in housing with a “no pets” policy. Note, however, that it only requires that housing providers make reasonable accommodations for persons with service dogs.
The Fair Housing Act does not apply to hotels and motels or other facilities lodging transient guests.
Airplanes: The Air Carrier Access Act (ACAA) allows that a service dog may travel with its owner on an airplane. Google the name of your airline and “service dog” for details.
Other Species as Service Animals
Only dogs, and miniature horses meeting certain criteria, can serve as service animals. For reference and information on the criteria for miniature horses, see the Overview and Miniature Horses topics on this page: ADA Requirements
Approaching Service Dogs and Their Owners
You may hear that you should not speak to a service dog because it is rude to its owner, as if you were talking to their wheelchair. But we love it when people give attention to our dogs, and the owners of service dogs feel the same way.
However, there are some important considerations concerning our approach to service dogs and their owners:
Approaching the Dog: When we encounter a service dog in public, we should assume that it is “working,” performing its function in assisting its owner. Often service dogs wear signs asking us not to disturb them while they are working.
It is therefore important to ask permission before we give attention to a service dog. Which is, of course, the courteous and safe way to approach any dog.
Approaching the Owner: When we’re out with our dogs, it’s usually for relatively brief periods of time. And they all add up to only a small part of our day.
A person with a service dog, on the other hand, has their dog with them virtually all throughout their day. That could include their commute to work, their workday at the office, running errands at lunchtime, and rushing around the mall doing last minute Christmas shopping.
In educating others about service dogs, we can point this out and suggest that they be very considerate in deciding when to speak to a person with a service dog. It’s not that they wouldn’t love to chat with us; it’s that there are just too many of us and they need time to live their lives.
If you are an outgoing person, you will be speaking to those around you at the gym, on the bus, and in the checkout line at the grocery store. And if one of them happens to have a service dog, consider speaking to them, too. We certainly don’t want to exclude them.
We just need to be especially considerate of people with service dogs. We need to make sure we don’t interrupt their dog’s work, or contribute to an incessant interruption of their lives.
An emotional support dog (ESD) provides therapeutic support to a person with a mental health-related disability. They are often referred to as therapy dogs, companion dogs, or comfort dogs by both the public and health professionals.
While all dogs provide love and emotional support, the designation of emotional support dog is only applicable to dogs which have been prescribed by a licensed mental health professional. The mental health professional must document the need for their client to have an emotional support dog, which is typically done in the form of a letter.
The following text was taken from a HUD document: Service Animals and Assistance Animals for People with Disabilities in Housing and HUD-Funded Programs
“…the housing provider may ask persons who are seeking a reasonable accommodation for an assistance animal that provides emotional support to provide documentation from a physician, psychiatrist, social worker, or other mental health professional that the animal provides emotional support that alleviates one or more of the identified symptoms or effects of an existing disability. Such documentation is sufficient if it establishes that an individual has a disability and that the animal in question will provide some type of disability-related assistance or emotional support.”
Where You Can Take Your Emotional Support Dog
Businesses: The owner of an emotional support dog has no special rights to be accompanied by their emotional support dog anywhere that dogs are not generally allowed, except where individual states grant this right.
Hotels and Motels: Hotels and motels are treated as businesses.
No-Pets Housing: The Fair Housing Act (FHAct) allows that a person may keep an emotional support dog in housing with a “no pets” policy. Note, however, that it only requires that housing providers make reasonable accommodations for persons with emotional support dogs.
To read more about your rights as a renter or tenant as governed by the laws in your state, follow the link to information for your state on this HUD page: Tenant Rights by State
Or you can follow the link for your state on this HUD page to find a local counseling agency that you can phone: HUD Approved Housing Counseling Agencies
The Fair Housing Act does not apply to hotels and motels or other facilities lodging transient guests.
Airplanes: The Air Carrier Access Act (ACAA) allows that an emotional support dog may travel with its owner on an airplane. Google the name of your airline and “emotional support dog” for details.
Other Species as Emotional Support Animals
No-Pets Housing: The Fair Housing Act is not limited to certain species, though it only requires that housing providers make reasonable accommodations for persons with emotional support animals.
Airplanes: Google the name of your airline and “emotional support animal” to see what species are allowed on their airplanes.
Therapy Dogs
A therapy dog is trained to provide affection and comfort to any number of people, and its primary job is to allow unfamiliar people to make physical contact with it.
Emotional support dog owners often think their dog is a therapy dog because their mental health professional prescribed it as such, and that’s understandable. After all, the dog is being prescribed for mental therapy.
But because of this, people come to believe that a person has the right to keep their therapy dog in housing with a “no pets” policy, and to take it with them on airplanes. They don’t, but based on this misinformation many people want their dogs to become registered therapy dogs.
We can all do our part to educate the public and make it easier for people who legitimately need a service dog to assist them with their disability or an emotional support dog to help them with their mental health-related disability, as well as those who want to help others by visiting with a therapy dog.
Where You Can Take Your Therapy Dog
A therapy dog handler has no special rights to be accompanied by their therapy dog anywhere that dogs are not generally allowed.
Other Species as Therapy Animals
Dogs, cats, guinea pigs, rabbits, domesticated rats, horses, donkeys, llamas, alpacas, pot-bellied pigs and birds can all be used in therapy animal work. This website was named TherapyDogInfo.net only because most therapy animals are dogs, and that’s what most people will search for on the web.