Service animal
Service animals are working animals that have been trained to perform tasks that assist disabled people. Service animals may also be referred to as assistance animals or helper animals depending on the country and the animal's function. Dogs are the most common service animals, having assisted people since at least 1927.
Various definitions exist for a service animal. Various laws and policies may define service animal more expansively, but they often do not include or specially accommodate emotional support animals, comfort animals, or therapy dogs.
Regulations regarding service animals vary by region. For example, in Japan, regulations outline standards of training and certification for service animals. In the United States, only dogs are recognized as service animals; they are generally allowed in areas of public accommodation, even where pets are otherwise forbidden.
Definitions
A service animal is an animal that has been trained to assist a disabled person. The animal needs to be individually trained to do tasks that directly relate to the handler's disability, which goes beyond the ordinary training that a pet receives and the non-individualized training that a therapy dog receives.The international assistance animal community has categorized three types of assistance animals:
- Guide animals, which guide the blind;
- Hearing animals, which signal the hearing impaired; and
- Service animals, which do work for persons with disabilities other than blindness or deafness.
Roles of a service animal
The people that can qualify for a service animal can have a range of physical and/or mental disabilities.A guide animal is an animal specifically trained to assist a visually impaired person to navigate in public. These animals may be trained to open doors, recognize traffic signals, guide their owners safely across public streets, and navigate through crowds of people. A mobility animal may perform similar services for a person with physical disabilities, as well as assisting with balance or falling issues, or fetching dropped or needed items. Some of them are trained to pull wheelchairs. Hearing animals are trained to assist hearing-impaired or deaf persons. These animals may be trained to respond to doorbells or a ringing phone or to tug their owners toward a person who is speaking to them. Psychiatric animals can be trained to provide deep-pressure therapy by lying on top of a person who may be experiencing PTSD flashbacks, overstimulation, or acute anxiety. They may be trained to interrupt harmful behaviors. Similarly, autism animals have been recently introduced to recognize and respond to the needs of people with autism spectrum disorder; some persons with ASD state that they are more comfortable interacting with animals than with human caregivers due to issues regarding eye contact, touch, and socialization. Medical emergency animals can assist in medical emergency and perform such services as clearing an area in the event of a seizure, fetching medication or other necessary items, or alerting others in the event of a medical episode; some may even be trained to call emergency services through use of a telephone with specially designed oversized buttons. Service animals may also be trained to alert persons to the presence of an allergen.
Difference from emotional support animals and pets
Service animals also provide companionship and emotional support for owners who might otherwise be isolated due to disability; however, providing companionship and emotional support is not a trained task that qualifies an animal as a service animal.In some places, including most of the US, claiming that an emotional support animal or a pet is a service animal is illegal.
Limitations
Service animals should not be taken into every place, especially if there are bona fide safety issues. Some activities may be unsafe for the dog , and, in other situations, the dog's presence may cause a safety problem.Even if service animals in general are accepted, an individual service animal could be excluded because of its own behavior or situation. For example, in the US, individual service dogs have legally been excluded from some places for not being properly controlled by its handler, because the handler was unable to care for it, for having a contagious disease, and for urinating or defecating in inappropriate places.
In some places, service animals in training have the same rights to enter a place as a fully trained and working service animal, and in other places, they do not.
Acquisition
Service animals may be acquired from an organization that trains them, or may be purchased as a puppy and then trained later. Assistance Dogs International and Animal Assisted Intervention International organize international networks of service dog non-profits.Trained service animals tend to be expensive, with costs running into the tens of thousands of dollars. In some cases, even though money is paid, the service animal is not being bought by the user, but merely leased.
Training
Training a service dog may take two years. The training is intensive; 120 hours of training over six months is considered a minimal level of training.The training for a service dog is more individualized than the training for a therapy dog, because the service dog supports only a single individual, and therapy dogs work with a variety of people.
The training may be done by a non-profit organization, by an individual or small business, or by the owner. For legal recognition, some countries require licensed trainers. For example, service animals in Japan are only legally recognized if they are certified by designated agencies.
Access by region
In many countries, guide dogs, other types of assistance dogs, and in some cases miniature horses, are protected by law, and therefore may accompany their handlers in most places that are open to the public, even if local regulations or rules would deny access to non-service animals. Laws and regulations vary by jurisdiction.Japan
In Japan, the Act on Assistance Dogs for Physically Disabled Persons was issued in 2002. The stated goal of this act was to improve the quality of "assistance dogs for physically disabled persons" and expand the use of public facilities by physically disabled people.Assistance dogs are classified as either guide dogs, hearing dogs, or service dogs. Public transportation, public facilities, offices of public organisation, and private businesses of 50 or more people are required to accept certified assistance dogs. Only certified assistance dogs are required to be accommodated. They must display a sign with their certification number, and the dog's health records and proof of certification must be provided upon demand. Private housing and private businesses with less than 50 people are encouraged but not required to accept assistance dogs.
Visitors whose assistance animals were self-trained or trained by an organization not approved by the Japanese government are legally considered ordinary pets while in Japan.
United States
In the United States, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 prohibits any business, government agency, or other organization that provides access to the general public from barring service dogs. However, religious organizations are not required to provide such access. Current federal regulations define service animal for ADA purposes to exclude all species of animals other than domestic dogs and miniature horses.Other laws also apply. The US Air Carrier Access Act permits trained service animals to travel with disabled people on commercial airplanes. Under current regulations, airlines may require a completed DOT Service Animal Air Transportation Form attesting to the service animal’s health, behaviour, training, and capacity to relieve itself or remain sanitary.
The Fair Housing Act requires housing providers to permit service animals as well as comfort animals and emotional support animals, without species restrictions, in housing.
The revised Americans with Disabilities Act requirements are as follows: "Beginning on March 15, 2011, only dogs are recognized as service animals under titles II and III of the ADA. A service animal is a dog that is individually trained to do work or perform tasks for a person with a disability. Generally, title II and title III entities must permit service animals to accompany people with disabilities in all areas where members of the public are allowed to go."
While only dogs are recognized as service animals, the Department's revised ADA regulations have a new, separate provision about miniature horses that have been individually trained to do work or perform tasks for people with disabilities. Entities covered by the ADA must modify their policies to permit miniature horses where reasonable.
The ADA states that a service animal may be removed from the premises if the dog is out of control of the handler or the dog is not housebroken. Service animals are to be kept under control by wearing a leash, harness, or tether unless it would interfere with the animal's ability to perform its tasks. Housebroken means the service animal is to be adequately trained to urinate and defecate in appropriate places.
However, businesses may exclude service animals when the animals' presence or behavior "fundamentally alters" the nature of the goods, services, programs, or activities provided to the public. This could include exclusion from certain areas of zoos where a dog's presence could disrupt the animals' behavior or where there is open access to the animals, or if a service dog's alert behavior is barking, its behavior could be considered fundamentally altering the service provided by a movie theater. In a medical setting, service animals are normally permitted in patient exam rooms but excluded from operating rooms and other sterile environments.
Staff are legally allowed to ask the following questions about service animals: "Is the dog a service animal required because of a disability?" and "What work or task has this animal been trained to perform?" Staff cannot request documentation, ask about the handler's disability, or require the animal to perform its tasks.
Other rules relating to service dogs outlined by the ADA:
- Staff can neither deny service for reasons such as allergies or fear of dogs nor deny service for people with allergies or psychiatric conditions for reasons of a service dog being present; instead, all disabled people need to be accommodated.
- Staff cannot charge handlers extra fees because of a service animal.
- Hotels must provide handlers the ability to reserve any room, not just rooms deemed "pet-friendly".
- Staff are not responsible for supervising a service animal.
- Dog may be of any breed, though certain breeds, such as German Shepherds, Labrador Retrievers, and Golden Retrievers are more popular.