Paws & Effect: Service dog vs. therapy dog vs. emotional support dog: What's the difference?

More and more, we are seeing individuals using dogs (and other animals) to help them cope with life's challenges. Dogs have become an integral part of our lives and can help us in many ways.

Differentiating between service dogs, therapy dogs and emotional support dogs can be difficult and, unfortunately, either people don't know the difference or others are trying to take advantage of that very fact. Each of these dogs has a very different job from the others and the terms are not interchangeable.

Service dog

The Americans with Disabilities Act defines service dogs as "dogs that are individually trained to do work or perform tasks for people with disabilities." This definition now also has a provision to include miniature horses, which in recent years have become excellent service animals.

Examples of such work or tasks include guiding people who are blind, alerting people who are deaf, pulling a wheelchair, alerting and protecting a person who is 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, such as alerting an individual to the sound of a telephone, alarm clock, oven or smoke detector, and others may even alert a person to a baby's cry.

Service animals are working animals, not pets. The work or task a dog has been highly trained to provide must be directly related to the person's disability. These animals are highly trained and have spent months, even years learning these tasks to work as a team with their disabled partner, helping their handlers attain the safety and independence from which their disabilities would otherwise limit them. It's not cheap to train a service dog. The average cost of training a dog from Guide Dogs for the Blind, for example, averages $30,000.

Often, these dogs are bred specifically to be service dogs, and are fostered in qualified homes until they go away for training. Once in a training program, it might be one to two years before a dog is ready to be placed with a disabled partner.

Therapy dog

Therapy dogs also receive extensive training but have a completely different type of job from service dogs. Their responsibilities are to provide psychological or physiological therapy to individuals other than their handlers; who are usually their owners. These dogs have stable temperaments and friendly, easygoing personalities.

Typically, they visit various institutions like hospitals, schools, day cares, rehabilitation facilities, nursing homes and more. Unlike service dogs, therapy dogs are encouraged to socialize and interact with a variety of people while they're on duty.

It is important to note that, despite thorough training, certification and the therapeutic benefits therapy dogs provide, they do not have the same jobs or legal designation as service dogs. While some institutions offer therapy dogs access on a case-by-case basis for the benefit of patients, guests, customers or clientele, the handlers or owners of therapy dogs do not have the same rights to be accompanied by these dogs in places where pets are not permitted, as per the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Emotional support dog

Emotional support dogs are not required to undergo any form of specialized training, and can include other pets such as pigs, cats, hamsters and more. Their primary roles are to provide their owners with emotional comfort. Emotional support animals can be a huge benefit to individuals psychologically. Even the basic gift of companionship and unconditional affection can be just the right therapy to counter a condition like debilitating depression.

While the ADA does not grant owners of emotional support dogs the right to be accompanied by these animals in establishments that do not permit pets, the Fair Housing Act does allow for disabled owners of emotional support animals to reside in housing that has a "No Pets" policy, as a reasonable accommodation.

Use and abuse

Unfortunately, there are people who abuse these descriptions for their own gain. Currently only 12 states have a law making it illegal to misrepresent a service dog and, unfortunately, Missouri is not one of those states. Let's hope that changes soon.

Every time someone fakes having a service dog, it puts the work of real service dogs in jeopardy. Trained service dogs provide assistance in everyday life to those who need it. The consequences are not just limited to a shop owner asking a dog owner to stop allowing her dog to pee repeatedly in the store. An owner's and fake service dog's actions, no matter how small, will have an impact on the people they encounter, and one misstep can cause people to believe all service dogs are just over-glorified pets.

You wouldn't pretend to be blind to get a reduced bus fare. You wouldn't pretend to be a paraplegic to use a wheelchair at the supermarket. So, please don't try to pass your pet off as a service dog. We should all be respectful to those in need of service animals.