The Difference Between Emotional Support and Service Animals

What’s the difference between an emotional support animal and a service animal under the ADA? In this edition of Ask About the ADA, Joe Zesski breaks down how each is defined, what they are trained to do, and why only service animals are granted public access rights. For a transcript of today’s episode, please visit the Ask About the ADA podcast feed on BuzzSprout.

Transcript

Hello. Welcome to Ask About The ADA, the podcast, where we try to answer your questions about the Americans with Disabilities Act and how it applies to people's everyday lives. I'm Joe Zesski, the program manager here at our center. And on today's podcast, we're going to ask a question that we often get in one form or another. And essentially it boils down to what is the difference between an emotional support animal and a service animal?

These are two different things and have different protections under the Americans with Disabilities Act. The short answer is that service animals are dogs that are trained to do a specific task to assist their handler with a disability, where an emotional support animal provides comfort or calming to their handler, but doesn't necessarily perform a specific task. But let's investigate that a little bit further, and we'll do that by exploring the definition of service animals.

A service animal is any dog that is individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of an individual with a disability, including people who have physical, sensory, psychiatric, intellectual, or other types of disabilities. This definition can be found in title two of the ADA and its regulations, section 35.104, and in title three regulations at 36.104.

But what's the implication of this definition? First, I do want to make one side comment while I just said it is any dog individually trained, there is a limitation on the type of species so dogs can be service animals. There's one exception beyond a dog that can be a service animal and that would be a miniature horse. But essentially service animals for the most part do need to be dogs. They cannot be cats, they cannot be birds, they cannot be monkeys. So a service animal must be a dog, with the one possible exception of a miniature horse. Now other than being a dog, it can be any type or breed of dog, and that is permissible under the definition of service animals for title two and three of the ADA.

So if a dog meets this definition, it is individually trained to do work or perform tasks for an individual with a disability, then it is considered a service dog, regardless of if it has any special license or certification. In fact, under the ADA, there is no federal licensure or special certificate for service dogs. Now of course, this can lead to confusion, and that's a topic we can explore in a different podcast. But for now, it's important to know that there is no, quote unquote legally recognized service animal license available. So by this definition, we also know that service animals are not pets. They are working animals and designed to do a function or task for their handler with a disability that they either have difficulty or cannot perform themselves. 

By contrast, emotional support animals sometimes referred to as ESAs, are typically therapeutic pets. They're usually prescribed by a professional, a therapist, a psychiatrist, a doctor, etc, to help someone with emotional difficulties or challenges. These dogs or emotional support animals are not trained to do a specific task, or to do work for the person with a disability. The Department of Justice, who creates the regulations for title two and three of the ADA, recognizes that providing emotional comfort and support is an important function, but the department is clear that this is not recognized as a task or doing work, so that is an important distinction to keep in mind.

Also, under emotional support animals. Sometimes there are dogs that are called therapy dogs and these are also pets. They're typically very gentle in nature, well mannered, and have a very calm demeanor. And they're trained to behave well in a variety of different settings. And oftentimes therapy dogs, they have a job to bring a sort of higher level of social functioning to a group setting.

So sometimes that could be a nursing home. It might be in a school setting, it could be in a hospital, it could be in hospice care or some similar type of setting. However, emotional support animals or therapy dogs are not working animals as recognized under the definition of service animals. And so why is that important? It's important to realize that because service animals as opposed to emotional support animals have different rights to access.

Since some animals are recognized as service animals under the ADA, they have the right to access public spaces, regardless if there is a no pets policy allowed. The only exception is in areas where a sterile environment must be maintained, but otherwise service animals typically should be permitted wherever the public is allowed to go. 

Emotional support animals, however, don't have the same right to access public spaces. They can be invited or permitted to enter those spaces, but there's no legal requirements under the ADA to allow an emotional support animal to enter a public space. One final side note here, with emotional support animals, while they are not protected in terms of going into public places, they can be considered a potential form of reasonable accommodation in many housing situations under a law known as the Fair Housing Act, but that is a whole separate conversation for a different day.

So for now, it's important to know that really the distinction between service animal and emotional support animal in terms of its practical application comes down to a service animal having rights in terms of accessing public spaces that emotional support animals do not. And hopefully now you know a little bit more about the difference between a service animal and an emotional support animal.

That being said, I thank you for joining us. I'm Joe Zesski, the program manager here at the Northeast ADA. I'd like to thank our team for creating this podcast, Nina Leach, who is our student worker and editor, as well as Peter Quinn, who does final polishing and editing on the podcast. Thank you, and if you have a question that you would like answered, please feel free to contact us here at the Northeast ADA at www.northeastada.org and we look forward to speaking with you again in the future.