Service animals are animals that have been trained to perform tasks that assist disabled people.
A service animal is an animal that has been trained to assist a disabled person.
Dogs are the most common service animals, having assisted people since at least 1927.
Service animals are specially trained animals that assist individuals with disabilities to perform tasks that they cannot do for themselves.
These animals are commonly dogs, but in some cases, miniature horses may also be used.
Service animals are trained to perform specific tasks directly related to a person’s disability.
Service animals are protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in the United States.
This law requires that service animals be allowed to accompany their handlers in all areas where the public is normally allowed to go, including restaurants, stores, hotels, and public transportation.
Service animals are not considered pets under the ADA, and businesses and other entities are not allowed to discriminate against individuals with disabilities who use service animals.
It’s important to note that service animals are working animals and should not be distracted or petted while they are active.
New categories of assistance animals have appeared, such as emotional support animals, but they are not trained to perform specific tasks and therapy animals that assist professionals to provide comfort.
Guide dogs assist individuals who are blind or visually impaired by guiding them around obstacles, stopping at curbs, and navigating them through various environments.
Hearing dogs help individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing by alerting them to important sounds such as doorbells, phones, alarms, or the name being called.
Mobility assistance dogs aid individuals with mobility impairments by picking up dropped items, opening doors, turning on lights, and providing support while walking.
Seizure alert dogs are trained to sense changes in their handler’s body chemistry before a seizure and alert them so they can take precautions or get help.
Medical Alert Dogs are service animals are animals that are trained to perform specific tasks to assist individuals with disabilities.
These animals are trained to provide various kinds of support to help their handlers navigate daily life and mitigate the effects of their disabilities.
Guide Dogs assist individuals who are blind or visually impaired by guiding them through obstacles, stopping at curbs, and navigating various environments.
Hearing dogs alert individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing to important sounds like doorbells, alarms, or other auditory cues.
Mobility assistance dogs help individuals with mobility impairments by fetching items, opening doors, providing balance and stability, and more.
Medical alert dogs can detect changes in their handler’s body chemistry, such as drops in blood sugar levels or impending seizures, and alert them to take necessary action.
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 the United States, service animals are generally allowed in areas of public accommodation, even where pets are generally forbidden.
A guide animal is an animal specifically trained to assist a visually impaired person to navigate in public: 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: assist with balance or falling issues, or fetching dropped or needed items, and even pull wheelchairs.
Hearing animals are trained to assist hearing-impaired or deaf persons: responding to doorbells or a ringing phone or to nudge 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.
Psychiatric animals can be trained to interrupt harmful behaviors such as skin picking.
Autism animals recognize and respond to the needs of people with autism spectrum disorder.
Some patients 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.
Service animals provide companionship and emotional support for owners who might otherwise be isolated due to disability
Providing companionship and emotional support is not a trained task that qualifies an animal as a service animal.
It is illegal to bring an animal to non-pet friendly places simply because it provides companionship or emotional support.
Claiming that an emotional support animal or a pet is a service animal is illegal.
Service animals should not be taken into every place.
Some activities may be unsafe for the dog and, in other situations, the dog’s presence may cause a safety problem.
An individual service animal could be excluded because of its own behavior or situation.
Individual service dogs have legally been excluded from some places for not being properly controlled by its handler.
Training a service dog may take two years: training is intensive; 120 hours of training over six months (about five hours per week) is considered a minimal level of training.
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.
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.
Religious organizations are not required to provide such access.
The US Air Carrier Access Act permits trained service animals to travel with disabled people on commercial airplanes.
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.
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.
Miniature horses generally range in height from 24 inches to 34 inches measured to the shoulders and generally weigh between 70 and 100 pounds.
Entities covered by the ADA must modify their policies to permit miniature horses where reasonable.
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 to be adequately trained to urinate and defecate in appropriate places.
Businesses may exclude service animals when the animals’ presence or behavior alters the nature of the goods, services, programs, or activities provided to the public.
The ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990) in the United States defines a service animal as a dog that is individually trained to do work or perform tasks for an individual with a disability.
Emotional support animals do not qualify as service animals under the ADA.
Service dogs are the most common type of service animal.
Dogs can support both physical and mental disabilities.
A mobility assistance dog helps with movement; this may be a large dog that can provide physical support or to help propel a wheelchair, or a dog that has been trained to do specific small tasks, such as pushing a door open.
A guide dog helps blind people walk safely.
A hearing dog alerts deaf people to important sounds, such as a ringing alarm.
Some dogs are medical response dogs. They can sense a medical issue and alert the handler.
They can be trained to sense epileptic seizures.
A diabetes alert dog senses when a person’s blood sugar level is dangerously low or high.
A psychiatric assistance dog may be trained to calm someone who is upset, help the handler leave an overwhelming situation, or signal specific events.
Autism assistance dogs help individuals with autism.
A miniature horse can be trained to as a guide horse for a blind person, to pull wheelchairs, or as support for persons with Parkinson’s disease.
Advantages of miniature horses as service animals: may be chosen by people whose religion considers dogs to be unclean, or who have serious allergies to dogs, or have phobias.
Miniature horses have average lifespans of 30–35 years, much longer than those of both service dogs and monkeys.
Miniature horses take at least 6 months to a year of training, done only by professional trainers.
Miniature horses have excellent range of vision (350 degrees), good memories, calm nature, focused demeanor, and good cost-effectiveness.
Miniature horses are cost-effective primarily because their long working life, of about 20 years, is so much longer than for other animals, so the longer training period is balanced by the longer service time.
Miniature horses are particularly well suited to guiding people with no or low vision.
A helper monkey is a type of assistance animal, that is trained to help people with quadriplegia, severe spinal cord injuries, or other mobility impairments, similar to a mobility assistance dog.
Capuchin monkeys taking seven years to train, and are able to serve 25–30 years (two to three times longer than a guide dog.
In 2010, the U.S. federal government revised its definition of service animal under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and non-human primates are no longer recognised as service animals under the ADA.