The Love Bugs in their Service Dog in Training Harnesses

The Love Bug puppies are two weeks old today, and they’re wearing their tiny service dog in training harnesses!

Why are these puppies already wearing harnesses when they’re too young to go out in public? We start teaching all of our pups to wear the harness when they’re just a few weeks old to help prevent them from developing harness sensitivity. When they’re older, they’ll wear a harness every time they go out in public with their raisers and later their partners. We want our dogs to be completely comfortable wearing it while they work.

According to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), service dogs are not required to wear a harness that identifies them as a service dog. However, we require all of our dogs in training to wear our harness and we highly recommend that our partners have their service dog wear one. Why do we do that? Even though it’s not required by law, the harness makes it clear to the public that the dog is a service dog in training or a working service dog. It’s a clear signal to others that the dog is working and they shouldn’t interfere with them, although there is still much education to be done around service dog etiquette. (Please note that the ADA does not cover service dogs in training. However, in Pennsylvania, trainers and dogs in training are given the same access as working service dog teams.)

When working service dogs wear a service dog harness, it also reduces the likelihood that a business will challenge the person’s right to be there with their service dog, making it easier for our partners to go about their lives. The ADA gives people public access with their service dogs, which means they and their service dog can go any place that’s open to the public. This includes restaurants, grocery stores, movie theaters, and more. We want our service dogs to make people’s lives easier, not more challenging. 

So all of our dogs, like the Love Bugs, start wearing harnesses when they’re still tiny puppies. It’s one small step in their service dog training. And as you can see in the photo above, the puppies are already getting very comfortable in their harnesses!

If you’d like to learn more about the service dog law, you can read the service dog section of the ADA, as well as these FAQs aboutservice dogs and the ADA. 

Service Dog, Emotional Support Dog, Therapy Dog: What’s the Difference?

There is often a lot of confusion about the difference between a service dog, an emotional support dog, and a therapy dog. What are the differences?

Service Dogs

A service dog is individually trained to perform tasks that are directly related to their human partner’s disability.

Service dogs (and miniature horses) are the only ones covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). By law, service dogs must be allowed to accompany their partner into any establishment open to the public.

In addition to the ADA, service dogs are also covered under the Fair Housing Act and the Air Carrier Access Act.

On Tuesday, we posted a detailed discussion about the ADAand service dogs. Please check it out for more information about service dogs and the law.

Emotional Support Animals

Emotional support animals are comfort animals. They are not service dogs. Unlike service dogs that must be trained in specific tasks, emotional support animals do not need any special training. Their mere existence provides comfort and emotional support for someone with a disability.

People who have emotional support animals do not have public access and are not covered by the ADA. Their animals cannot accompany them to public places such as restaurants, movie theaters, etc., unless those establishments allow pets.

However, emotional support animals can go some places where other pet animals cannot. Both the Fair Housing Act and the Air Carrier Access Act include emotional support animals. Documentation from a doctor or mental health professional may be required to prove the animal is necessary.

Therapy Dogs

A therapy dog is a well-trained pet that provides comfort to others. They visit schools, hospitals, nursing homes, libraries, and other places with their owners.

 However, even though they go to some public places that don’t usually allow dogs, therapy dogs and their owners do not have public access and are not covered under the ADA. They must be invited to these establishments.

Therapy dogs are not trained in specific tasks, although they usually need to meet certain behavior requirements, such as basic obedience and tolerance for sudden noises, medical or assistance equipment, and being handled by strangers, among other things.

Therapy Dogs International has lots of information about therapy dogs and certification.

ADA: What Is a Service Dog?

For the past two days, we have been really focusing on the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the rights of people who use service dogs. Kristin Hartness, the executive director of Canines for Disabled Kids, has been visiting us and sharing her expertise to help us learn more effective ways to work with schools, children with service dogs, and their families.

During our discussions with Kristin, one point that kept cropping up is the need to clearly differentiate a service dog from an emotional support dog. One can accompany their human partner anywhere the public is allowed to go. The other cannot. In this blog post, we’ll talk about what a service dog is.

So what is a service animal?

There has been a lot of media about fake service dogs and businesses denying access to people with service dogs. Let’s take a look at what the ADA says about service animals.

According to the ADA’s 2010 revised requirements, service animals are “dogs that are individually trained to do work or perform tasks for people with disabilities.” (Miniature horses are also covered under the ADA, although they need to meet slightly different requirements than service dogs do.)

The tasks that the dog performs must be directly related to the person’s disability. For example, a service dog could provide deep pressure to calm someone with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or retrieve items for someone in a wheelchair or with mobility issues. Both of these examples are tasks that are directly related to a person’s disability.

However, retrieving items for someone with full mobility would not be considered a task under the ADA because it doesn’t directly relate to that person’s disability.

Note that the definition of service animals just says “dogs.” It doesn’t specify breed. Although we use Labrador retrievers and some golden retrievers in our program, other breeds can certainly be trained to be service dogs.

What other requirements are there?

Service dogs must always be under the control of their partner. Typically, service dogs are connected to their partner with a leash, although some dogs may be tethered to their partner. On the rare occasions when the dog must work off leash, the dog must still be controlled through voice or hand signals.

Where can a service dog go?

A person with a service dog has public access, which means the dog can accompany that person anywhere where the public is normally allowed to go. So can they go into restaurants, even though health codes exclude animals from the premises? Absolutely. Can service dogs go into grocery stores? Yes, they can. Movie theaters? Of course. An examination room at the hospital? Definitely.

The important thing, though, is that when service dogs are in these public places, they are working. So if they accompany their partner to a beach that normally doesn’t allow dogs, they must be working, just as if they were accompanying their partner to the bank or grocery store.

There are a few places where service dogs are not allowed to go without an invitation. For example, service dogs could be excluded from hospital operating rooms, churches, and some government buildings. Now, some of our service dogs in training do accompany their puppy raisers to church, but the raisers needed to get permission from that church first.

Can businesses ask questions about a service dog?

Not all public places understand the ADA as it pertains to service dogs, and people with service dogs are often questioned when they enter.

There are only two questions that staff at businesses or other establishments can ask:

Is the dog a service animal required because of a disability?

What work or task was the dog trained to do?

They can’t ask questions about the person’s disability, nor can they ask for a demonstration of the task. They also can’t require someone to produce documentation to certify that the dog is a service animal.

Can a service dog be asked to leave?

A person with a service dog must be allowed access, but the person can be asked to remove their service dog if the dog is out of control and the person doesn’t do anything to control their dog and/or if the dog is not housebroken. For example, if a person is in a restaurant with their service dog and the dog continuously barks or growls, the person can be asked to remove their dog. Of course, the person must be allowed back in without their service dog.

Allergies and fear of dogs are not valid reasons to exclude a person with a service dog. In a restaurant, for example, a service dog team cannot be seated way in the back, far away from the other diners, because one of the patrons has a fear of dogs or is allergic.

Can businesses charge fees for service dogs?

No, a person with a service dog cannot be charged an extra fee just because they use a service dog. If a fee, such as an admission fee for a zoo, is required, the person with a service dog must be charged the same amount as other patrons without service animals.

Since service dogs are not pets, businesses such as hotels and taxi services also cannot charge any pet fees or deny service because the dog will shed. Basically, the person cannot be charged extra fees because their service dog exists.

A person with a service dog may choose to carry a lint roller or bring a blanket to cover the bed (if the dog sleeps in bed with them) or the seat of a taxi or rental car. But they are not required to do this.

However, if the service dog causes any damage, the person can be charged for it. The dog is the person’s responsibility.

Who is responsible for a service dog?

Like we just said, a service dog is the responsibility of their human partner. The staff at a business are not required to provide any sort of care for a service dog. Even if staff offer to bring your dog a bowl of water, they’re not required to and it may be best for the person to take care of getting their own dog’s water. And of course, no one but the service dog’s human partner should feed the dog.

Where can you find the service dog laws?

We highly recommend reading the Department of Justice’s document about the ADA’s revised requirements for service animals. If you have a service dog, you may want to even print it and carry it with you. Although you’re not required to do this by law, it can make things much easier if someone questions your right to enter a business with your service dog.

Becoming a Service Dog Team

Today, SSD Bridge, SSD Hank, and SSD Nitro are taking their public access tests with their new partners. The other five dogs who were in team training—SSD Beaker, SSD Brickle, SSD Cove, SSD Dexter, and SSD Nola—took their public access tests last week and are now busy working.

The public access test is the evaluation that all of our service dog teams must pass in order to become official working service dog teams. We use the public access test as a way to ensure the dogs are well-behaved in public and that each person has control of their dog—both important aspects of the ADA. We have no doubt that our remaining teams—Bridge, Hank, and Nitro—will do great on their public access test!

These teams have spent the last two and a half weeks learning how to work together. They’ve practiced the basic cues that all of our service dogs know, such as “sit,” “down,” “stay,” “heel,” and “come.” The teams also worked on the individual tasks each dog was trained to perform.

Under the ADA, a service dog must perform tasks related to their partner’s disability. For example, the dog could act as a counterbalance to support someone as they walk, retrieve dropped items, pull a manual wheelchair, or apply pressure to calm their partner’s anxiety. Each of our service dogs learned several tasks based on their partner’s needs and preferences.

After our teams spent a week learning how to work together, we hit to road to practice in some real life situations.

Every team training includes a fun field trip, and this time, we went to ZooAmerica. We planned the trip for the morning, so we could be there before the pavement got too hot for the dogs. It was still a hot day, so we made sure to stop for lots of water breaks.

The zoo is a fun, but challenging trip, since there are lots of distractions for the dogs and the people. We walked through the exhibits, and Bridge, Hank, and Nitro worked on nice loose leash walking. As you can see from some of the photos, the dogs were allowed to notice the animals. After all, it’s difficult not to notice the animals, especially when most of the animals came right over to the edges of their enclosures to investigate the dogs. However, the dogs needed to still stay focused on their partners. Each person did a nice job making themselves more interesting than anything else in the environment!

It was a good, fun real world experience!

After today, Bridge, Hank, and Nitro will be working service dogs. We have already seen what a difference these three dogs, and Beaker, Brickle, Cove, Dexter, and Nola have made in their partners’ lives, and we know those bonds will only continue to grow.

New Service Dog Teams

This week is International Assistance Dog Week, a week devoted to celebrating assistance dogs and the many ways they change people’s lives. We started celebrating a little early this year because last Friday, three people passed the public access test with their new service dogs. SSD Ottawa and SSD Slate are now working service dogs, and SSD Boomerang is a facility dog in a school. And in June, four more dogs were placed—SSD Beaker, SSD Brooklyn, SSD Falstaff, SSD Hamlet, and SSD Seifert.

These dogs and their partners spent two weeks in Team Training learning how to work together. They started by practicing the most basic skills, such as attention, sit, down, and stay, and moved on to the specialized skills and behaviors each dog learned specifically for their partner.

Congratulations to all of our new service dog teams! We’re looking forward to hearing stories about your new service dogs.

We mentioned that our new teams passed their public access test, which means we have certified that their service dog meets certain standards. The dog will be able to go anywhere in public with their partner—restaurants, movie theaters, amusement parks, post offices, grocery stores, etc. Even though the dogs are allowed by law to accompany their partners in public, not everyone knows and understands the law. Service dog teams are often denied access because people don’t understand that service dogs are not pets.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) lays out the law for service dogs. These ADA requirements are available online.

Here’s a quick overview of the ADA as it pertains to service dogs:

• Service dogs perform tasks or do work for people with disabilities. Service dogs are not pets.
• Any business, nonprofit, or state and local government that serves the public must allow service dogs to accompany people with disabilities everywhere the public is normally allowed to go. This means, for example, that a person with a service dog cannot be seated in the back of a restaurant far away from the other patrons.
• Service dogs must be under the control of their handler.
• Other people can only ask two questions about a service dog: (1) is the dog a service dog required because of a disability, and (2) what work or task has the dog been trained to perform.

If you see a service dog in public, please remember not to pet it. Don’t pet, feed, talk to, or otherwise interact with a service dog. The dog is working. Of course, you can certainly talk to the person, and if they give you permission to pet their dog, you can. However, if the person says no, please respect their choice.

Why Fake Service Dogs Are a Problem

You may have seen one—a fake service dog. They’re pets that have little to no formal training, let alone service dog training. But their owners wanted to take their dogs everywhere with them, so they hopped online, bought a service dog vest, and put it on their dog. Now their dog goes with them to stores, restaurants, movie theaters—everywhere. The dog may bark and whine in public, eat things off the floor, greet everyone they see, or worse, lunge at and bite people and legitimate service dogs. Because of the service dog vest, business owners don’t feel like they can ask the person to remove the dog. The whole experience makes business owners much less welcoming, and even hostile, toward legitimate service dog teams.

People think it’s harmless to dress their pet dog in a service dog vest and go everywhere, but it’s not. It’s hurting real service dog teams. Sometimes it makes it impossible for the service dog to do its job, which can be life threatening to the dog’s person. At the very least, it adds unnecessary stress to people who need service dogs when business owners try to deny them access.

Many people think that taking a service dog in public is a right, but it’s actually a law. Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), people who have service dogs can take them in public. A service dog can go anywhere the public can go. Under the ADA, service dogs are equivalent to medical equipment, and while we may not always like the analogy of comparing our dogs to equipment, the truth is that the dogs perform specific tasks to mitigate a person’s disability, much like medical equipment does. In fact, the dogs can often do tasks for a person that a sophisticated piece of medical equipment cannot do. For example, hearing dogs alert people to sounds in the environment, seizure response dogs can get help when their partner has a seizure, psychiatric service dogs can move in front of a veteran in a crowd to create space, and balance dogs can act as a counterbalance to help a person walk and prevent falls.

Few people realize the amount of training that goes into a single service dog, nor do they realize the high expectations for behavior that are required of service dogs. When we’re working with our dogs in public, we often have people tell us that they think their dog would have made a good service dog. Many people think their dog could be a service dog because their dog is calm, listens to cues, and likes people or has “a connection” with a person. However, there is much more to it than that.

Within Susquehanna Service Dogs, training starts from the moment the puppies are born. The dogs are socialized, and taught self-control, good house manners, and a wide variety of cues. Once the dog has been trained by a volunteer puppy raiser for one and a half to two years, the dog comes to our kennel where our professional trainers take over the job of training the dogs. Each dog is matched with a person and then trained in specific tasks to mitigate that person’s disability. Few people realize that it takes approximately two and a half years of continual training before a service dog is ready to be placed with a person. And on top of the training, there are also health and temperament requirements.

A working service dog can calmly handle going into almost any situation and environment. Ideally, other people should barely notice that the dog is there. For example, in a restaurant, the dog should go under the table and lay quietly. Other patrons should not even realize that there is a dog under the table. In all situations, the dog should be as unobtrusive as possible.

Back when the ADA was being developed, advocates worked hard to make the law as broad as possible and to protect the privacy of people with disabilities. Under the current law, staff and other people are only allowed to ask a person with a service dog two questions: 1. Is the dog a service animal required because of a disability? and 2. What work or task has the dog been trained to perform? No certification or identification is required for service dogs, nor do they have to even wear a service dog harness.

Because the law is so broad, it’s very easy (though illegal) for people to pass their pets off as service dogs. As fake service dogs become more of a problem, some people have suggested making the ADA more restrictive—requiring dogs to come from accredited organizations or requiring registration and certification for every service dog. However, we don’t see this as a viable solution. A more restrictive law would penalize people who have trained their own dogs. Because the dog doesn’t come from an accredited organization, they wouldn’t have public access, which would defeat the entire purpose of having a service dog. And requiring registration and certification would erect unnecessary barriers for people who are seeking independence.

So, if we don’t want the law to change, what can we do to prevent the problem of fake service dogs from escalating?

Education is important. People need to understand that every time they put a service dog harness on their pet, they are affecting the lives of people who truly need a service dog. Business owners also need to learn their rights with the ADA. A business can legally ask a person to remove their service dog if the dog is out of control and the handler doesn’t effectively take action to control the dog or if the dog is not housebroken. You can read the full ADA requirements for service animals here.

If you know someone who tries to pass their pet off as a service dog, please let them know that their actions are hurting others. Please consider the cost to someone who truly needs a service dog by their side in order to have their independence.