Basic Information About Service Dogs

• What Is a Service Dog?
• Other Terms Used to Refer to Service Dogs
• The Difference between Service Animals, Therapy Animals, Companion Animals and "Social/therapy" Animals.
• Resources

What Is a Service Dog?

According to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA, 1990), a dog is considered a "service dog" if it has been "individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of a person with a disability."

Also according to the ADA, a "disability" is a "mental or physical condition which substantially limits a major life activity" such as:

• caring for one's self
• performing manual tasks
• walking
• seeing
• hearing
• speaking
• breathing
• learning
• working

Some disabilities may not be visible, such as:

• deafness
• epilepsy
• psychiatric conditions

To be considered a service dog, the dog must be trained to perform tasks directly related to the person's disability.

Example:

Chris has a hearing disability and can't hear sounds such as a smoke alarms, doorbells, sirens, or her name being called. Chris is otherwise able to function with no other assistance. Chris has a dog named Dusty.

If Dusty is trained to let Chris know when a sound occurs (e.g., smoke alarm, doorbell), Dusty is considered a service dog.

On the other hand, if Dusty is only trained to retrieve items around the house and does not know how to alert Chris to sounds, Dusty is not considered a service dog for Chris, because the task of retrieving is not directly related to Chris' disability.

 Other Terms Used to Refer to Service Dogs

 To be consistent with the legal definition in the ADA, Delta Society uses the following terms:

 • Service animal describes any animal that is individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of a person with a disability.

 • Service dog, adapted from the term service animal, is a species-specific term to generically describe any dog in the role of service animal.

Because people are more familiar with dogs as service animals, this web site uses "service dog" instead of "service animal" to make it easier for people to find the information they're looking for. Most of the time, the information that refers to "service dogs" also applies to service animals.

While the term "service animal" is legally defined, some organizations use the term "assistance animal" or "assistance dog."

The terminology used to label specific types of work dogs perform for people with disabilities has not been standardized. For example, a dog trained to help a person walk might be referred to by different sources as a "mobility dog", a "walker dog", or a "support dog." In addition to the wide variety of terms used, many service dogs are cross-trained to perform more than one category of work (such as guide and mobility for a person who is blind and has severe arthritis) and labeling them by the work they do becomes cumbersome.

Many individuals choose to identify their service animal generically (as "service animals", "service dogs", "service cats," etc.) because it identifies the roles of the animals without disclosing the nature of the persons' disabilities, and it is consistent with the terminology of the laws that protect them.

The Difference between Service Animals, Therapy Animals, Companion Animals
and "Social/therapy" Animals

Service animals are legally defined (Americans With Disabilities Act, 1990) and are trained to meet the disability-related needs of their handlers who have disabilities. Federal laws protect the rights of individuals with disabilities to be accompanied by their service animals in public places. Service animals are not considered "pets."

Therapy animals are not legally defined by federal law, but some states have laws defining therapy animals. They provide people with contact to animals, but are not limited to working with people who have disabilities. They are usually the personal pets of their handlers, and work with their handlers to provide services to others. Federal laws have no provisions for people to be accompanied by therapy animals in places of public accommodation that have "no pets" policies. Therapy animals usually are not service animals.

Companion animal is not legally defined, but is accepted as another term for pet.

"Social/therapy" animals likewise have no legal definition. They often are animals that did not complete service animal or service dog training due to health, disposition, trainability, or other factors, and are made available as pets for people who have disabilities. These animals might or might not meet the definition of service animals.