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.

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.