Confusion About Service Dogs

A lot of people don’t really understand what a service dog is, or whether they are anything more than a scam used to bring a pet along.  Do you remember the story of the United Airlines customer who tried to bring  her “emotional support peacock” with her on an airplane?  In reality, the bird was purchased to be part of an art installation, and it was a social media personality.  The owner trying to pass it off as something it was not, and the audacity of her ploy sticks in our heads and makes people wonder what anyone bringing an animal onboard is trying to pull.  You may also have seen ads on Facebook touting easy certification of your pet as an emotional support animal.  Some of the less honest offerings even suggest you can take your emotional support animal with you anywhere you go.  If it’s that easy, how meaningful is it?  Emotional support animals are a real thing, but the bottom line is that they are pets that bring emotional support and comfort to their owners.  Therapy dogs are also a thing, and their name makes it seem like they are used for emotional support.  How do they fit in, and how are they different from service dogs?

Emotional Support Animals

Emotional support animals are pets that provide comfort and emotional support for their owners.  They are covered under the Fair Housing Act of 1968 (FHA), whereby a landlord cannot prevent a tenant from having an emotional support animal in a building where pets are normally not allowed.  No specialized training is required, so these animals may or may not be capable of maintaining good behavior in public.  They do not have legal access to restaurants, stores, or public transportation.  Most American airlines no longer allow emotional support animals to travel in the cabin.

Therapy Dogs

These are pet dogs that are used in a professional setting to improve therapeutic outcomes of patients.  These animals need to have the appropriate temperament for a clinical setting and will need to have basic obedience, but they are not necessarily trained in any specific tasks.  They do not have public access privileges, and airlines are not required to allow them to travel in the cabin.  You should only expect to see them in a therapist’s office.

Service Dogs

A service animal is defined in the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) as a dog that has been individually trained to do work or perform tasks for an individual with a disability.  The task(s) performed must be directly related to the person’s disability.  By definition, peacocks, snakes, and other animals are out!  Service dogs are usually professionally trained in their specialized tasks and in obedience.  Many, like Koogle, are specially bred to do their jobs and to be calm in public.  The key differentiator between emotional support or therapy dogs from service dogs is that emotional support and therapy dogs provide comfort and support just by their presence.  Service dogs perform work or tasks to mitigate the impact of a disability.  In addition to the ADA, service dogs are also covered by the Air Carrier Access Act of 1986 (ACAA).

How Can You Tell a Real Service Dog?

Fake service dogs really are out there.  Anyone can buy a service dog vest on Amazon.  They’ll even sell you a service dog ID tag, so how can anyone tell if a service dog is real?  It basically comes down to knowing what to ask and knowing what to expect.

Employees can ask dog handlers two questions before admitting a dog into their place of business.  (1) Is this dog a service animal required because of a disability?  (2) What work or task has the dog been trained to perform?  This takes the questioning off the disability and focuses on what the dog does.  If the response to question two is a task the dog performs to mitigate a disability, the assumption is that it is a real service dog.  Example tasks could include:

• Alerting the handler to sounds they can’t hear
• Picking up dropped objects the handler can’t reach
• Alerting the handler to a coming seizure 
• Pulling the handler’s wheelchair up ramps

That’s by no means a complete list.  The key point is that the dog takes an action to complete a task. Service dogs are expected to be under their handler’s control while in public and should not be disruptive.  They should not be barking or whining.  They should not be lunging or snapping, and they definitely shouldn’t steal food from your table.  We would expect a business to eject a loud or threatening customer, and it is no different for service dogs. Businesses are within their rights to remove a service dog that is out the handler’s control, and you are within your rights to ask for that dog to be removed.

Many Disabilities are Invisible

People regularly ask me if I’m training Koogle when we’re out together in public.  They are genuinely surprised when I tell them Koogle is my fully fledged service dog, because I don’t have an obvious disability.  Few of us would question whether a dog leading a blind person is legitimate service animal, but dog handlers with hearing loss, PTSD, diabetes, and other disabilities might be looked at suspiciously.

Knowing what a service dog is and what should be expected of it is helpful.  I assume the dog is legitimate when it lives up to my expectations of how a service dog should act in public, and I continually work with Koogle to make sure he will live up to service dog standards of behavior when we are out.