Solving the Assistance Dogs Puzzle: Service Dogs, ESA's and Therapy Dogs

Service dogs, emotional support animals, therapy dogs… there’s a lot of confusion and misunderstanding about their differences, what purpose these dogs serve, their rights to access public spaces, and what kind of training they must complete to become capable of performing their jobs.  Many people have disabilities that can be aided by a use of a service dog but they don’t know where to start in terms of their training.  Alternately, there are many people who take advantage of the loopholes in the current system just so they can take their pet dogs into stores or on airplanes with them.

I proudly worked at a guide dog organization for nine years (and still volunteer with another one today).  I witnessed first-hand the tremendously important and often difficult job service dogs have to fulfill.  It is my intention to provide some clarity on this often cloudy subject.

What Does a Service Dog Do?
Service dogs are task-trained to assist a person with a mental or physical disability to perform certain tasks they cannot do on their own, such as guide a blind person around obstacles, serve as a brace or open drawers for a person with mobility issues, or interrupt a panic attack for a person with debilitating anxiety or PTSD.  While they do also provide companionship, this is not their primary job.

A service dog’s job is not an easy job to fill, and not every dog that starts the path to becoming a service dog can finish it.  Teaching a dog a specific task associated with a disability is often the easiest part; it’s building the lifestyle skills that lead to superb behavior in public venues that takes much longer.   Many dogs do not have the level of confidence, self-control, patience, problem-solving skills, or healthy level of independence required to handle the high intensity of office buildings, travel systems, public forums, restaurants and malls – no matter how much we try to help them build these skills.

Most service dog organizations carefully choose their dogs by evaluating a number of temperament and health factors.  Many of these selected dogs begin their training from early puppyhood to ensure adequate socialization, obedience and proper lifestyle skills training and are evaluated at various points throughout their training to keep them on the right track.  While there is such a thing as owner-trained service dogs, this training should still start while the pup is young and under the supervision of a qualified professional.

Learning some tasks that are specific to service dog work will require guidance from a trainer who has actually worked in the service dog field and not from a novice, since they require experience and finesse to teach.  One such example is called “intelligent disobedience” – when a dog must make the decision to ignore a command from its person if responding is not in the person’s best interest (like if a blind person tells a guide dog to cross the street but a car is coming that the blind person does not realize is there).  Some other complicated tasks may include teaching a service dog for a child with autism to “anchor” his weight if the child tries to bolt (rather than running off with the child), or teaching a seizure-response dog to retrieve a phone or medication in an emergency situation (rather than stressing out).  These skills must be extremely solid, since in some cases it could mean the difference between life and death for the service dog’s human partner.

Due to specific temperament needs, there are some dog breeds that are more commonly suited to service dog work over others (although all dogs are individuals).  For example, some herding breeds tend to have a lot of drive and initiative but they may not settle well or may get easily overstimulated in cities or large crowds.  Some breeds have such a high prey drive around other animals or moving objects that it is difficult to build the reliable impulse control required by a service dog.   And some hound breeds are naturally more aloof and more motivated by following their noses than by the desire to please and respond to their person.  The most common breeds used by many service dog organizations are Labrador Retrievers, Golden Retrievers, a mix of those two breeds, or German Shepherds.

The Emotional Support Animal (ESA) Conundrum
An emotional support animal’s (ESA’s) task is to deescalate a situation when it’s getting to be too much for its person who has a mental or emotional disability, such as debilitating anxiety or panic attacks.  In order to get a legitimate ESA, a person must have a prescription from their primary psychologist indicating that their emotional condition requires intervention from an animal in order to function. 

It’s important to note that the Americans With Disabilities Act (see below) does not apply to ESA’s and an ESA does NOT have the same rights as a service dog.  In fact, an ESA’s rights are much more limited: an ESA can only gain access to housing facilities where pets are normally prohibited and to fly in the cabin on an airplane alongside its human partner.

There are other domestic animals in addition to dogs that can be ESA’s – cats, ferrets and other rodents, even lizards!  Though it’s important to remember that not all of these types of animals are comfortable being in small housing units or aboard airplanes and could easily pose a problem to other tenants/travelers.  While you may consider an alpaca, peacock or tarantula to provide emotional support (if you’re into having those kinds of pets), it’s best to leave their emotional support duties to the venue that is most appropriate for their species.

An emotional support... peacock??

The Ever-Pupular Therapy Dogs
Therapy dogs do not serve a particular person with a disability and therefore are not protected under the ADA.  This means they do not have any special rights for public access, housing, airline travel or hotel stay.  After meeting some training requirements and passing a certification test however, a therapy dog CAN be used to provide therapeutic companionship in group settings with prior approval from the premises.  These settings can include in classrooms for reading time with children, in an airport to calm stressed travelers, or in a nursing home or hospital to provide comfort to the sick or elderly.

Therapy dogs can be of various sizes, breeds, and ages.
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For information on testing requirements, please visit the Therapy Dogs International website at www.tdi-dog.org.

Gaps in the System
In spite of the complexity of their jobs, there is currently no set regulations regarding the amount training that a service dog or ESA must complete to become certified.  Sadly, this is where many people are taking advantage of the system.

It is easy for virtually anyone to purchase a “service dog” vest and identification card online with no proof of training.  There are also dog trainers who have turned to making a profit by claiming they can turn a person’s dog into a service dog after a short 6-week course, but these courses do not have the time to build the necessary life skills to perform most service dog work and many rely on management equipment such as shock and prong collars.  There are websites that claim for $40 you can have a letter from a psychologist (who has never met you in person and does not understand any history of your behavior, etc) recommending that you have an ESA.  I consider these actions to be fraudulent.

Let’s face it – the majority of humans are not brain surgeons.  A career like that requires an enormous amount of training.  Those people have put in countless hours of study, hands-on practice, they have spent years honing their skills and achieving the right licenses and certifications – they didn’t just turn into a brain surgeon after a 6-week online course.  And if they did, how many of us would feel comfortable on their operating table?! ​

In the same way we could consider it fraud for someone to impersonate a brain surgeon without the correct credentials, I feel it is also fraudulent for us to place a dog in a service dog position if he is not qualified for it.  “Service dogs” who have not had the proper training are just “imposters” and have on countless occasions ruined things for legit service dogs and the people who rely on them.  People who say their dog is a “service dog” when he’s not (or acting like they have a disability in which they need a service dog when they don’t) is like taking up a handicapped parking spot just because it’s raining and they don’t feel like walking (but they can) or saying they’re veterans to get a free meal on Veteran’s Day (when they’re not).  Morally, they’re taking advantage of the system and it’s appalling – please don’t be one of those people.

The Americans With Disabilties Act (ADA)
This federal law was signed into legislation in 1990 and amended in 2008 to provide people with disabilities easier access and to warn against unlawful discrimination.  Under the ADA, it is unlawful to ask a person who has a service dog what their disability is – and as we know, while physical disabilities are often more obvious, mental disabilities are not.  You can ask what that person’s dog is task-trained to do to aid their disability and that person should be able to describe those tasks in detail.

Here are just some of the conditions recognized as a disability by the Act:
Blindness, deafness, missing limbs, mobility impairments requiring the use of a wheelchair, autism, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, cerebral palsy, post-traumatic stress disorder, schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and bipolar disorder. 

For more information about how the ADA applies to service dogs, and for a rundown of accredited service dog organizations, please visit:
U.S. Department of Justice ADA Requirements for Service Animals - https://www.ada.gov/service_animals_2010.htm
Assistance Dogs International - https://www.assistancedogsinternational.org/

I feel there is an immense need for more precise regulations regarding training requirements and certification for service dogs and ESA’s, and better education and resources for people with disabilities to meet their needs for a service dog.  Together through education, perhaps we can decrease the number of people who take advantage of the service dog title every year and help those who have a true need for service dogs acquire the superbly-trained dogs that they need in the right way.