ADA Definition of Service and Emotional Support Animals
The ADA defines a service animal as a dog individually trained to perform tasks for a person with a disability. These tasks must directly relate to the person’s disability, such as guiding individuals with visual impairments, alerting those with hearing impairments, pulling a wheelchair, or retrieving items for someone with mobility issues (42 U.S.C. § 12101 et seq.).
Emotional support animals (ESAs) provide a different type of service and have fewer rights and privileges than service animals, putting a premium on claims that an animal works as a service animal rather than an ESA. ESAs require no special training and need not have the ability to perform tasks for the person they serve. ESAs provide comfort and emotional support to individuals with mental health or emotional conditions. Unlike service animals, ESAs can be any animal that offers their owner therapeutic benefits through companionship.
Requirements to Qualify for a Service Animal or ESA
Qualifying for a Service Animal
To qualify for a service animal under the ADA, an individual must have a disability as defined in Section 12102 of the ADA. That section defines disability as a substantial limit respecting one or more major life activities. That section provides that “major life activities include, but are not limited to, caring for oneself, performing manual tasks, seeing, hearing, eating, sleeping, walking, standing, lifting, bending, speaking, breathing, learning, reading, concentrating, thinking, communicating, and working.”
Service animals require individual training to perform tasks helping people with disabilities. Examples include guiding blind people, alerting people with hearing deficits, pulling a wheelchair, alerting and protecting a person having a seizure, reminding a person with mental illness to take prescribed medications, calming a person with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) during an anxiety attack, or performing other duties. Service animals are working animals, not pets. The work or task a dog has been trained to provide must be directly related to the person’s disability. Dogs whose sole function is to provide comfort or emotional support do not qualify as service animals under the ADA.
Service animals must receive individualized training to perform tasks that mitigate the handler’s disability. Correctly done, the training process is rigorous and tailored to the individual’s needs, ensuring that the service animal can effectively assist its handler.
Qualifying for an ESA
To qualify for an ESA, an individual must have a mental health or emotional condition diagnosed by a licensed mental health professional. This professional must provide a letter stating that the person has a condition and that the animal provides necessary emotional support. The letter must outline how the animal helps alleviate symptoms of the condition and must be renewed annually to maintain its validity in most contexts. Unlike service animals, ESAs do not require specialized training.
The Rights of a Service Animal and an Emotional Support Animal
Under the ADA, service animals can accompany their handlers in most public places, including restaurants, hotels, retail stores, and public transportation. However, they must be under the handler’s control at all times and should not pose a threat to the health or safety of others.
ESAs have certain rights under the Fair Housing Act (FHA; 42 U.S.C. § 3601 et seq.) and the Air Carrier Access Act (ACAA; 49 U.S.C. § 41705). Under the FHA, individuals with ESAs can live with their animals in housing with a no-pets policy, provided they have the necessary documentation from a licensed mental health professional. The ACAA previously allowed ESAs to travel with their owners in an aircraft cabin. Recent changes in regulations have given airlines the discretion to treat ESAs as pets rather than service animals.
ADA Regulations Respecting Certification of Service and Emotional Support Animals
The ADA requires no form of certification as to the training or qualifications of a purported service animal. There is no official registry or certification process for service animals under the ADA (28 C.F.R. §§ 35.136, 36.302). Effectively, the handler (the person served by the animal) may simply declare their pet a service animal or ESA. The ADA protects the right of the handler to make such a declaration and for the declaration to stand (28 C.F.R. § 35.136).
Businesses, government entities, and other entities covered by the ADA cannot ask for proof of certification as a condition for entry or service. Instead, the emphasis is on the service animal’s tasks and the handler’s need for those tasks. The ADA explicitly states (28 C.F.R. § 35.136) that service animals do not require certification or identification documents. Businesses, landlords, or organizations can ask only two questions to verify a service animal:
- Is the animal required because of a disability?
- What tasks is the animal trained to perform?
Similarly, no certification is required for emotional support animals. However, a letter from a licensed mental health professional is necessary to validate the need for an ESA. This letter must include the professional’s contact information, the license, and the date of the letter. This letter serves as the primary documentation required but does not equate to a formal certification or registration. It does not address the qualifications of the animal.
My Own Experience with Service Animals
I speak from personal experience when I talk about the training process for a service animal. I have a mobility disability and have for about 25 years. I have used three Labrador retrievers as service animals. For most people with disabilities, no service exists to provide them with a trained service animal. You must locate a dog and arrange its training. My first service animal underwent basic socialization and obedience training like most well-cared-for pets. The dog then underwent more advanced obedience and socialization training, eventually obtaining the American Kennel Club K-9 Good Citizen certificate. The ADA does not require that. I hired a professional trainer to train the dog and to teach me to work with and train the dog. He said the dog should have the certificate. His background as a professional trainer included employment for a time with an organization that trained service animals to assist the hearing impaired.
The ADA does not preclude the handler from training their service animal. Many do that, some more ably than others. I anticipated I would train my service dogs in the future, so I made it a point to learn the process as we trained my first. The law requires that a service animal be controlled by its handler. A service animal must have a harness, leash, or other tether unless the handler’s disability precludes the handler from using one or because using one would interfere with the service animal’s safe, effective performance of work or tasks, in which case the service animal must be otherwise under the handler’s control (e.g., voice control, signals, or other effective means) (28 C.F.R. § 35.136).
Part of the process requires identifying the tasks the handler needs the animal to perform and then training the animal to do them. For example, I have diabetes and peripheral neuropathy. Peripheral neuropathy often results in impaired balance and instability when walking. I have those problems, and they are worse because I have had substantial portions of both feet amputated because of issues associated with the neuropathy. I have used a cane to assist with my balance for the last 25 years. As my condition worsened, I chose a service animal as I did not like the idea of being wheelchair-bound, although I use a powered chair when I travel. My service animals all received special training to provide the following assistance:
- If I lose my balance, I can lean on the dog for support and, hopefully, regain my balance and not fall. The dog knows to be at my side and brace to provide that support.
- If I fall, the dog can provide physical support to help me get up again. It knows to come close and help me.
- The dog supports me if I have trouble getting out of a chair or off a couch (as sometimes with low-slung furniture).
- If I drop something, such as my keys or an envelope, the dog can pick it up and hand it to me (mouth it to me), so I need not bend down to try to pick it up myself, as I would be likely to lose my balance and fall were I to attempt to do so.
- When I walk without the dog, I usually walk slowly and unevenly, increasing the likelihood of falling. The dog assists me by pacing me so I walk more quickly. This keeps me moving forward with more stability, making it less likely that I will stumble or fall.
Each of my dogs learned to do those tasks for me. All but the first learned those skills exclusively under my training. In addition to being the perfect size for me and having sufficient strength to support me, Labrador retrievers are loyal, devoted, affectionate, and attentive. My service animals also provide emotional support when the neuropathy attacks me with pain, as it does from time to time. I have never qualified my dogs as ESAs, as this would serve no point because they are already service dogs, but they also provide that service. Even though it relates to my dealing with my disability, I do not consider it a task, so I do not include it in the list of what they provide as service animals. Nevertheless, it helps me get through the pain. As partial as I am to Labrador retrievers, I suspect most dogs could and would do that for a caring owner.
Training the dogs to perform these tasks took considerable time and effort over about 12 to 15 months, depending on the dog (at least that is what it took for my dogs). Dogs providing higher-level skills (such as those required for assisting a visually impaired person or a dog that can warn its handler of an impending seizure) may require considerably more time and training.
Because no mechanism exists for formal training certification, the service animal is trained when the handler says so. The system relies on the integrity of the handler. Unfortunately, not all handlers have as much integrity as one might hope. I have seen some so-called service animals who are so poorly behaved that their handler appears to have declared them trained as soon as a leash was attached to the dog’s collar. Those so-called service animals often have not been adequately socialized and do not respond appropriately to their handler’s control efforts. I have observed that such “service dogs” often lunge at strangers and attack or at least accost other dogs, some legitimately qualifying as service dogs. To make matters worse, I suspect that the handler had no disability other than being ethically and morally challenged, which would make the entire setup fraudulent.
Services Purporting to Certify Service Animals and Emotional Support Animals
Despite the absence of any testing or evaluation process, qualifications, or formal training requirements, many online businesses claim to provide certification for service animals and ESAs. These services often charge fees and provide official-looking certificates, identification cards, vests, and other paraphernalia to help dogs pass as service animals or ESAs. These certifications hold no legal weight under the ADA and have no official status. They get you nothing more than simply declaring the dog a service animal; they just make it look more official. Some of these online businesses will even provide you with a letter saying you need an ESA if you answer a short questionnaire. I looked at one such questionnaire, and it appeared that you qualify if you tell them you are depressed.
Due to the lack of any legitimate certification or qualification process under the ADA, these businesses may exploit individuals legitimately seeking assistance for their disabilities. Can you spell “SCAM”? They may also assist pet owners whose only disability is impaired integrity in passing off their pet as a service animal, even though the pet owners have no recognized disability and their pet has no specialized training. Can you spell “FRAUD?”
Individuals should be wary of services offering certification of service animals or ESAs as the ADA states that documentation is not a prerequisite for service animals, emphasizing that requiring such proof constitutes a form of unacceptable discrimination (28 C.F.R. § 35.136(f)).
In truth, dressing your dog up and passing it off as a service dog does not require the work of an online certification business. Save your money. If that is your plan, you can purchase a vest online imprinted with the words “Service Dog,” put it on your dog, and call it a “service animal.” Amazon has several options for you, and they cost much less than purchasing a vest through a certification business. In my experience, if the dog has a vest, everyone seems willing to accept it as a service dog. Ironically, although nothing in the law requires any attire for a service animal or ESA, most people expect to see a service dog wearing a vest or a bandana that signifies its status as a service animal. I have seen some stores question the bona fides of legitimate service animals without such clothing. Please do not think I encourage such misconduct. I do not. I simply would prefer that if you are so inclined, you do not line the pockets of a business claiming to provide certifications that have no legal consequence.
In fairness, I will confess that I have gone online and purchased such vests (but not from the certification vendors) and regularly put them on my dog when we go out. I see nothing wrong with that if you have a legitimate service animal. I do this for three reasons:
First, some people (but certainly not all) know they should not pet a service dog and or otherwise distract it from its job. The vest notifies everyone that this is a service dog, so please ask my permission if you want to pet the dog. My dog loves people and enjoys the attention. Usually, I allow it—and I tell my dog that she can pet the person (she knows to wait for my approval, and my telling her she can “pet” the person almost always gets a laugh). If we are in a stressful situation (such as in Costco on the Saturday before Christmas, where the sheer number of people creates a challenging situation, even for a well-trained service animal), I will thank the person for their interest in my dog but tell them it’s just too crowded and she needs to stay focused.
Second, most people expect a service animal to wear a vest and will question a dog without clothing that labels them as a service animal. You know what they say about “clothes making the dog” . . . .
Third, it makes a difference to the dog. My first service animal seemed to understand the difference between working and not working. Dutch was a rambunctious, playful, gregarious lab. Without the vest, he worked as the clown prince of the dog park. When I put his service dog vest on him, he immediately changed his behavior and became serious. He seemed to understand that the vest meant he had a job, and he wanted to do it well. I saw a similar reaction in my second and third service dogs, so I continued to dress them in service dog vests for that reason.
Abuse of Service Animal and ESA Regulations
Unfortunately, the lack of more restrictive requirements and the benefits of having your pet labeled as a service animal encourage ethically challenged people to endeavor to cheat the system. Some people falsely claim their pets to be service or emotional support animals so they may gain access to public spaces, businesses, housing, or transportation, where pets typically may not go or must pay special fees. This abuse undermines the legitimacy of genuine service animals and ESAs and can create difficulties for those who genuinely need these animals.
Conclusion
Navigating the rules and regulations surrounding service animals and ESAs can take time and effort, especially given the prevalence of meaningless certification services. Understanding the ADA’s definitions, qualifications, and rights for these animals is crucial for individuals seeking assistance and businesses and organizations that must comply with the law. The legitimacy of these animals is determined by their training, the tasks they perform, and the documentation from licensed professionals.
