Question by Hope: Service and Therapy Dog Question?
I’m training to be a RN at this moment, but I was wondering about Service and Therapy Dogs. My mom has Seizures and mental problems, and I suffer from severe Depression and Anxiety. I am thinking of getting a Therapy Dog and my mom a Service dog, but she is not an animal person, even though she wants one and needs one. I was wondering if I could get a or train my own Psychiatric Service/therapy Dog? Like a dog that helps with mental disorders, her mental illnesses bother her more than her seizures, and acts like a therapy dog as well? I hope I’m making some kind of sense here. Would the dog still be called a Service Dog? Or a therapy Dog? Where would I go to get training for this dog and will the dog be limited to my mother, or can I train the dog for more than one person, like therapy dogs are trained for hospitals, my dog can be trained for the Psychiatric wing. Any sense here?

Best answer:

Answer by TheRavenAZ
Lots of questions here. Let me see if i can answer them all, educate you about service dog law and clear some terminology up without running out of room.

First, lets clear up terminology

THERAPY DOGS: Dogs trained to comfort others, NOT the owner. Therapy dogs must be obedience trained, socialized and calm. These are animals that visit hospitals and nursing homes. These animals are legally considered pets, have NO ADA protection and you must have permission to enter all “no pets” establishments.

EMOTIONAL SUPPORT ANIMALS: Can be any animal. Usually “Supports” ONE specific person but has NO ADA protection and is legally considered a pet. No special training is required aside from obedience for when on airplanes. ESA’s give comfort to people with anxiety, stress and any other non Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) defined disability or those without disabilities. Aside from some special consideration with no pet rental housing and flying on airplanes, you cannot bring them with you in public where pets are not allowed.

WORKING DOGS: these are police dogs, search and rescue dogs, drug dogs etc . . . They have NO protection under ADA law and although are allowed to go places to do their job, are not allowed in “no pets” businesses while not working.

SERVICE DOGS: MUST be dogs or, in small exceptions, miniature seeing eye horses. Service dogs are for ONE specific person. You must first be LEGALLY defined as disabled under ADA standards, the disability MUST cause substantial interference to your daily life and there MUST be a physical task the dog can perform in direct relation to your disability, that mitigates your Disability. SD’s have full protection under ADA law. Having a SD for one qualified is considered a civil right. Having a fake SD (either being unqualified to have one or parading your pet as one) is considered Federal Fraud and is punishable by tickets, high fines, jail time and confiscation of the animal. SD’s must be strictly obedience trained, socialized and specially trained to perform the specific tasks the disabled person needs performed to mitigate their disability. SD’s are permitted ANYWHERE the public is permitted to go including restaurants, movie theaters, grocery stores and hospitals. Denying access to a service dog is a violation of Federal Law.

Service dogs include, but are not limited to: Diabetic Alert, Seeing eye, Hearing alert, PTSD, Psychiatric, Stability assist, fetching dropped objects for those who cannot etc . . .

Being “qualified” means by the legal definition under the ADA. Being on Social Security Disability (SSD), SSI or workmans comp is not a qualification. Having a Dr’s note does not qualify someone who is legally unqualified. Just having a disability does not qualify someone. For instance, if a person with hearing loss can hear when using hearing aides, or a Diabetic has controllable diabetes with testing and medication, they would NOT be qualified. A child with severe Autism would qualify yet another with less severe autism may not.

To answer your questions: Your Moms conditions MAY qualify her for a SD if they were uncontrolled by medication, severe, debilitating and long term (the ADA puts the percentage of people with mental disorders qualifying for service animals at 13%-18%). There’d also have to be a physical task that could be performed that would mitigate the disability.

Your Depression would have to be severe, long term, debilitating and uncontrolled by medication to qualify you for a SD, and there’d have to be a physical task that could be performed to mitigate your disability. Providing comfort, reassurance or just being there to make you feel better isn’t a legitimate task.

What you both could have and benefit from is an ESA.

Could you train your own? Yes. ESA’s need no specialized training.

Could you both use the same one? Yes, but you’d only logically have it 50% of the time. It might be better to have one each.

Your ESA could double as a Therapy dog with the correct training, but Service Dogs currently CANNOT be therapy dogs (as per Therapy Dogs International), plus service dogs work with ONE person. Therapy dogs work with many.

Could a trained psychiatric service dog be used in a psychiatric wing with other patients? If you qualified on all requirements for a PSD, it would be YOUR service dog. Remember, SD’s work with ONE person, Therapy Dogs work with many. Your personal SD could not be used to provide Therapy for others.

This is the best website for the most accurate information:

Http://www.servicedogcentral.org

Hopefully this helps. Sorry if its not what you wanted to hear.

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