Are You Sure That's a Service Animal?

Can a donkey qualify as a service animal? When did the ADA’s definition of service animal change? In this edition of Ask About the ADA, Joe Zesski explains how the ADA defines service animals and answers these important questions. 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 affects the lives of people every day. I'm Joe  Zesski, the Program Manager here at the Northeast ADA. And on today's edition of Ask about the ADA we’re going to answer two questions about service animals that are a bit tied together. That being said, let's dive right in. 

So the first question that we received was can a donkey qualify as a service animal? The answer is no. The definition of service animal is limited to either a dog with the singular possible exception of a miniature horse. So other animals, like a donkey or bird or cat, cannot be considered a service animal under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

And this is important to know because there was a time with the ADA when other types of animals besides dogs or miniature horses could be service animals and that leads us into our second question. That is, when did this change happen? When did the definition of service animals as being dogs or miniature horses come into effect? And this started or began on March 15, 2011.

This was a time after the ADA Amendments Act was passed in 2008 and federal agencies were charged with revising or giving the opportunity to revise regulations. The Department of Justice did so for titles two and three, and one of the areas that they did make some changes to was in the realm of service animals. There was extensive feedback from the public that was taken into consideration. And as I said prior to this date, other species of animals could be service animals. So someone may have a service animal that would be protected in terms of public access. However, with this change in regulation, now we have this much more restricted definition in terms of the species to being a dog or a miniature horse.

So some people asked why that was done, and this is because of the feedback that the Department of Justice received, both from advocates, from the business community and from other interested parties involved in public spaces. Having any species of animal potentially be a service animal led to a lot of confusion, and it made it more difficult for those who had legitimate service animal and disability related needs to have access and feel that their rights will be honored as well as for the public spaces. It became very confusing to know what type of animal they had to allow, even though they may have a no pets or no animals policy. So that confusion led to the restructuring of the definition for a service animal where now it is a dog that is individually trained to perform a task or to do work for an individual with a disability.

I hope this has been helpful and informative. If you have questions about the ADA or any particular situation, feel free to contact us. You can reach us at the Northeast ADA. Our website is www.northeast ADA.org. I'd like to thank our production team for putting together this podcast. Nina Leach is our student worker and editor. Thank you as well to Peter Quinn, who also does editing and finishing touches on this podcast. We couldn't make this without you. Again, I'm Joe Zesski and I hope to be talking with you again soon. Take care.