Service animal

Service animals are

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, service animals are generally allowed in areas of public accommodation, even where pets are generally 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^[3][4] and the non-individualized training that a therapy dog receives.^[5]

The international assistance animal community has categorized three types of assistance animals:^[6]

• 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.

In the United States, the term service animal encompasses all three of the above types (guide dog, hearing animal, service dog).

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.[5]

In the US, it is illegal to bring an animal to non-pet friendly places simply because it provides companionship or emotional support. Additionally, claiming that an emotional support animal or a pet is a service animal is illegal.^[9]

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 (e.g., a roller coaster, which will not have appropriate safety belts for the dog), and, in other situations, the dog's presence may cause a safety problem (e.g., by introducing contaminants into a sterile room in a hospital, or if the combined weight of the dog and its handler exceeds the weight limits for a piece of equipment).^[10]

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 (e.g., for

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.[11]

Acquisition

Service animals may be acquired from an organization that trains them, or may be purchased (e.g., from a dog breeder) and then trained later.^[12] Assistance Dogs International organizes international networks of service dog non-profits.

Trained service animals tend to be expensive, with costs running into the tens of thousands of dollars.^[12] In some cases, even though money is paid, the service animal is not being bought by the user, but merely leased.^[12]

Training

Training a service dog may take two years.^[12] The training is intensive; 120 hours of training over six months (about five hours per week) is considered a minimal level of training.^[5]

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.^[13]

The training may be done by an non-profit organization, by an individual or small business, or by the owner.^[12] 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.^[14]

Access by region

In many countries,

In Japan, the Act on Assistance Dogs for Physically Disabled Persons was issued in 2002.^[14] 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.^[15]

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.^[14] Only certified assistance dogs are required to be accommodated.^[14] They must display a sign with their certification number, and the dog's health records and proof of certification must be provided upon demand.^[14] Private housing and private businesses with less than 50 people are encouraged but not required to accept assistance dogs.^[16]

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.^[14]

United States

In the United States, the

• the miniature horse is housebroken;
• the miniature horse is under the owner's control;
• the facility can accommodate the miniature horse's type, size, and weight; and
• the miniature horse's presence will not compromise legitimate safety requirements necessary for safe operation of the facility."^[20]

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.^[7] 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 (e.g., outdoors or being paper trained).^[21]

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.^[22] 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.^[23] In a medical setting, service animals are normally permitted in patient exam rooms but excluded from operating rooms and other sterile environments.^[7]

Staff are legally allowed to ask the following questions about service animals: (1) "Is the dog a service animal required because of a disability?" and (2) "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:^[7]

• 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 (for example, by having the allergic person use a different room from the person with a service dog).
• 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,^[7] though certain breeds, such as German Shepherds, Labrador Retrievers, and Golden Retrievers are more popular.^[24]

Americans with Disability Act

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.^[7]

From the year it became active, that is, 1990, ADA inhibits any kind of discrimination against disabled Individuals. Although even before this, the Fair Housing section of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 also protects disabled individuals, the ADA solely focuses on discrimination based on disability. The scope of the American Disabilities Act is vast as it not only inhibits discrimination by the housing authorities but also covers the areas related to employment, transportation, education, etc.

There are different authorities that keep checking that ADA is wholly followed in the United States. For example, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ensures that there is no discrimination against disabled employees in the country. Whereas the Department of Transportation, with its full potential, makes sure that public vehicles and related services are comfortable for disabled individuals.

Federal Fair Housing Act

In 1988, the Federal Fair Housing Amendment Act banned discrimination against individuals based on their disability. Landlords are obliged to approve reasonable accommodation requests for disabled tenants so that disabled tenants can enjoy the dwelling as much as non-disabled tenants.^{[citation needed]} Reasonable accommodations can include living with an assistance animal. The assistance animal can be a trained service animal or emotional support animal.^{[citation needed]}

No matter the breed, type, size, or weight of these assistance animals,^{[citation needed]} the landlord has to allow them in the housing even if they follow a no-pet policy. In accordance with this Fair Housing Act, the landlords cannot ask for any extra charges for allowing either trained service animal or emotional support animals in the rental housing.^[25]

Other regions

• In most
  South American countries and Mexico, guide dog access depends solely upon the goodwill of the owner or manager. In more tourist-heavy areas, guide dogs are generally welcomed without problems. In Brazil, however, a 2006 federal decree^[26] requires allowance of guide dogs in all public and open to public places. The Federal District Metro
  has developed a program which trains guide dogs to ride it.
• In Europe, the situation varies by location. Some countries have laws that govern the entire country and sometimes the decision is left up to the respective regions.
• In Australia, the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 protects all assistance dog handlers. Current laws may not ensure that assistance dog users can always have their service animals present in all situations. Each state and territory has its own laws, which mainly pertain to guide dogs. Queensland has introduced the Guide Hearing and Assistance Dog Act 2009^[27] that covers all certified assistance dogs.
• In Canada, guide dogs along with other service animals are allowed anywhere that the general public is allowed, as long as the owner is in control of them. Fines for denying a service animal access can be up to $3000 in Alberta, Canada.^[28] There are separate laws for service dogs in Alberta, British Columbia, Nova Scotia, and Ontario.^[29]
• In South Korea, it is illegal to deny access to guide dogs in any areas that are open to the public. Violators are fined for no more than 2 million won.^[30]

Animals for individual assistance

Many service animals may be trained to perform tasks to help their disabled partners live independent lives.

Service dogs

Service dogs are the most common type of service animal. Dogs can support a litany of 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

Miniature horse

A miniature horse can be trained to as a guide horse for a blind person,^[31] to pull wheelchairs, or as support for persons with Parkinson's disease.

A full-grown miniature horse can vary from 26" to 38". There are two main registering organisations. The American Miniature Horse Association limits height to 34" whereas the American Miniature Horse Registry has a division for horses 34" to 38".^[32]

There are a number of advantages of miniature horses as service animals. Miniature horses may be chosen by people whose

Guide horse users report they typically are immediately recognised as a working service animal, whereas a dog may be mistaken for a pet.^{[citation needed]} Miniature horses have been praised for their excellent range of vision (350 degrees), good memories, calm nature, focused demeanor, and good cost-effectiveness.^[33] They 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.^[5] They are particularly well suited to guiding people with no or low vision.^[5]

Helper monkey

A helper monkey is a type of assistance animal, that is specially trained to help people with

Helper monkeys are usually trained in schools by private organisations, taking seven years to train, and are able to serve 25–30 years (two to three times longer than a guide dog).^[35]

After being

In 2010, the

• Emotional support animal—an animal that makes the owner feel better emotionally
• Animal-assisted therapy—therapy that uses contact with animals to improve a patient's social, emotional, or cognitive functioning
• Working animal—an animal that is trained to engage in productive tasks

References