Therapy Dogs and Your Legal Rights

Amy,

Any animal can be categorized as an "Emotional Support Animal" with a letter from a medical professional. A service animal is in a different category, as that animal has been trained to address a specific medical condition. This training usually takes about a year and a half, and not every animal that enters the training graduates.

There are more legal protections for a service animal than for an emotional support animal, in light of the specific medical needs that a service animal addresses. I think that most of us can recognize the difference between a Seeing Eye dog and an emotional support critter.

If you have a service animal, any proprietor or person of authority can only ask you if your animal is a service animal, and what skill your animal has been trained to execute, and must allow your service animal to accompany you. Airlines in the US have made a decision to allow ESAs (Emotional Support Animals) into the passenger cabin, but this is not a legally protected right. You can check with any train or bus line as to their individual accommodations for ESAs.

For a quick summary:

Service Animal: Can go anywhere with the owner and is federally legally protected.

Emotional Support Animal: Confirmed by a letter from a medical professional, but is not legally protected on a federal level. For example, a service animal is allowed in housing at all times, but housing exemptions for an ESA varies from state to state and county to county. A service dog is allowed in all commercial settings, but an ESA isn't.

Therapy animals are critters that have been trained to provide comfort to medically/emotionally compromised folk, like taking a dog to greet kids at the hospital, or using a therapy dog to comfort a child giving legal testimony. Therapy animals have no legal protections, but are given wide latitude in appropriate situations. But, you could not get a housing exemption by stating that your animal is a trained therapy animal, as that animal is trained to give support to someone who is not their handler.

As a trainer, I would like to encourage people not to make a mockery of the system we have in place that allows trained service animals freedom of movement throughout our society. If you truly need your animal for emotional support in any given situation, that's different. I would only hope that the animal could pass a canine good citizen test (or a test that suits its species), so that ESAs don't get a bad reputation. I have a feeling most people claim ESA status in plane travel because shipping an animal as cargo is a total crapshoot, and if airlines did a better job protecting animals during transit, we wouldn't have people bending the ESA guidelines.

I am not aware of Stage 4 cancer patients having any special category for an ESA.

Sorry if that got long, but it is a hot topic in my training community. I have seen ESAs excrete on people's feet, bark wildly at small children and other dogs, and behave in such an unrestrained manner that there is no way they are providing their person emotional support. Also, $60 and an internet connection can get anyone a bogus "therapy dog" certificate and vest, and that is just silly.

Have you thought about doing therapy work with your pupper? I would, if any of the two dogs I live with were at all comfortable in public spaces. Both my girls are timid, and they just wouldn't be happy out and about.

We could use more handlers and public-facing dogs, especially if your dog is cuddle sized! And you feel up to it, of course.

Thanks for being a loving dog person. You are the folk that make trainers happy.

Edited for this PS: You wrote an amazing, professional reply. Your skills in that area are on point, baby! Just wishing you worked for my organization.

The original answer has some of the information correct. Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (so we're talking about places of public accommodation), service animals are dogs and miniature horses that are trained to perform a specific task for an individual with a disability. This is a federal law, and as trains are places of public accommodation, you can take your service dog on a train. While service animals are expected to behave in public (and property managers can kick them out if they don't), owners are not required to have their service dogs professionally trained. You can train your own service animal to perform the needed task.

Emotional support animals are a type of assistance animal, which is any animal that provides assistance, performs a task, or provides support to an individual living with a disability. This is not limited to mental health issues. Assistance animals are covered under the Fair Housing Act, which is also a federal law, however it only applies to dwellings and not places of public accommodation. So people are not allowed to take their emotional support animals with them in public. Airplanes are another story.