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This is the puppy training podcast Episode number 18. What is a service dog? This podcast is for those looking to train their own dog, whether as a family, companions, service or therapy dog. And I'm here to help you every step of the way. This is the puppy training podcasts, and I'm your host, Amy Jensen. Hello, everyone. How was your weekend? I hope it was wonderful. I spent it with my family up a Colter Bay in the Jackson Hole area. It is beautiful. Country up there were fortunate enough to see some bears this weekend. We saw some elk. It was just a good relaxing weekend in the mountains. I love being in the mountains. Its various simplistic reminds me of just a very you know, Ah, humble lifestyle. You don't need a lot to survive. And I love getting back to that kind of feeling where it's just easy going and beautiful, beautiful country. So I hope you enjoy your weekend this week. Boots and I are working hard on loose leash walking were also working on lengthening his stays, as is a service dog and the company that I trained for they have sits and downs is automatic states. So we're working on that with boots so that he doesn't just pop right up out of his down. So I hope you guys are working on something great with your dogs this week. I would love to hear what it is. If you wanna email me at info at Baxter. Bella Dotcom. Tell me what you're working on. If you have a question where you want help with a training issue, you're having send that to that email as well. I'll get back to you. All right, so today I want to talk about different types of working dogs. I want to explain what is a service dog, because I am working with boots and this comes up a lot. I get asked this quite frequently. What is the difference between a service dog or a therapy dog? What about an emotional support dog? And then what's a companion dog? So I'm gonna go through those four different types of dogs today. I mean, explain what the differences are between those and really try to educate everyone on those things. It's important that we know the differences and that we know their rights in each of those different scenarios. One of the most frustrating things that I deal with as a service dog trainer is I have a puppy in training to be an actual service dog, and a lot of times I'll get you asked by the public. Oh yeah, all right. It's a service dog. And that's because a lot of times these days, people are just putting a vest on their dog. And I've seen my dog is a service duck. And so that kind of abuse really hurts the dogs and the trainers who are actually doing that work and training those dogs. So it's important to know the difference is so that we don't abuse the system and that the working dogs who are actually being trained to be working dogs can do their work without complaint. So let's talk about that today. First of all, let's talk about a service dog. That's what boots is. Boots isn't training to be a service dog. He is training for good dog autism companions. He's going to assist an autistic child, so a service dog basically isn't it dog that's individually trained to do work or perform tasks that benefit someone with a disability, so this could include physical, sensory, psychiatric, intellectual or any other mental disability. The task that the dog is trained to do must be directly related to the person's disability, and it has to be something that that person couldn't do for themselves. These well trained dogs have full public access rights, so that means they're able to go anywhere in public with their handler, and they're protected under the A D A. So these are not pets. These air working dogs, they go to school with their handler. They goto work with their handler. They go to restaurants, they go to grocery stores anywhere that person would go and need assistance. The service dog is allowed to go, and when you see a service dog, they usually have a vest on. And a lot of times it will say, Please do not pit. And the reason why is that dog is at work. Let's say that that dog is a diabetic alert dog or a seizure alert dog. If you were to go up and pet that dog and distract it, it could possibly miss what it's there. You know, the service that it there to provide that person. So we don't want to distract these dogs and we won't know all the time. What? That service. You know what service that dog is helping the individual with. So we just assume if it's a service dog, we just don't pet it Now. Autistic service dogs are different. Um, a lot of times people will ask us if they can put our dog and we actually say yes. And the reason why is Children with autism or people with autism? A lot of the times struggle with social contact or social interaction with people. And so if a person comes up and approaches them and ask them about their dog, that gives them a window or something that they know how to describe and explain that they could actually have a conversation with someone. And they get really excited about it. These kids love to show off the tricks that we train their dogs to dio, and it gives them something to talk about. And so we teach our service dogs to say high command. And so if a person approaches and asks us that they can, you know, interact with our dog, we say sure and then we instructor dogs to say hi. So are dogs air not to pay attention to people unless instructed to do so. So there are different things like that were depending on the service that the dog is performing for the person or the child that they might be allowed to say hi. But always, always, always as a rule of thumb, either. Just don't ask or at least ask first before you touch a service duck. Okay, the next type of dog is a therapy dog. So what's the difference between a service dog and have their B dawg? First, I'm gonna tell you what a therapy dog is, and then there's just a few differences that set them apart. So therapy dogs. They provide many people with therapeutic contacts, so they're not. They have a handler, but they're not serving the handler. They're actually serving the community, so usually they'll go into hospitals, schools or clinical setting. Sometimes they're in therapy offices, and they are there to improve the physical, social and emotional or cognitive functioning of the people that those facilities surf. So these dogs, the difference between like a therapy dog and a service dog would be that their therapy dogs don't have public access rights, so they are not allowed to go everywhere with their handler. Their handler is allowed to take them to places where they have been invited into, such as a school or a doctor's office. Or maybe there's a therapy dog at the, you know, mental Health Office. So these dogs are invited into there to serve the clients that come in. But they don't have general public access, right? So they're not going to be allowed in grocery stores, restaurants, things like that. So permission must be granted to enter public facilities and certification, maybe requested. So that's another important difference. When a service dog goes into, say, a grocery store, the business owner is allowed to ask two questions. By law, they can ask, Is this dog required because of a disability? And what worker task has the dog been trained to perform? So those would be the only questions that can be asked of a service dog. A therapy dog, though, would have to present some kind of certification so they could ask for that paperwork. That's totally fine, and it's allowed, but again, a therapy dog should not be trying to get into a grocery store. There's no purpose for them there. I do see lots of therapy dogs and airports, places where there's high stress. So on college campuses, maybe a finals week or high schools during a C T week, or any of those big testing times that there's a lot of stress. There's been some mass shootings in our country lately, just really sapping. There's therapy dogs who go to those kinds of locations to support this, the general public in helping them grieve and go through those emotions. A similarity would be that they would both need insurance, so the service dog and handler usually has insurance for themselves. And if anything were to happen between that service dog and the public, that insurance would cover it. A therapy dog is usually certified through an organization, and the organization provides insurance for them, which is really important because that therapy dog is interacting with the public right. So that brings us to 1/3 type, which is called an emotional support duck. So an emotional support dog is not a service dog, and it's not a therapy dog. These animals provide companionship. They help with things like depression, anxiety and certain phobias they don't have. The same service is under the 80 Eights service animals, so they're not allowed in grocery stores or restaurants or public areas other than they are allowed to travel by airplane with their handler. And they're allowed in housing as long as they have medical documentation. So if you live in apartment building and you're renting from someone and they have a no pet policy, you could present your medical documentation and that allows your emotional support dog to live with you. So again, no general public access rights. And oftentimes it's animals a pet so emotional support dogs don't go through the rigorous training that a service dog goes through. Therapy Dogs are also required to go through and pass a certain test in order to be allowed in these public places with other people. But an emotional support animal is different. It's oftentimes a pet, so it's just simply trained as much as that person trained them, and again it is allowed on airplanes and then in housing. As long as you have medical documentation. The fourth type of dog is a companion dog, and that's what a lot of us have. Their family dogs. They're meant to be with us just for companionship. Maybe we train them to do fun things like agility or sent tasks. Whatever the dog enjoys, maybe we take them hunting with us. Maybe there's lots of jobs you can give a dog, but in general we call them a companion dog. They're not trained to perform specific tasks related to any sort of disability. They're not required as part of a medical treatment plan. It's a family pet. They may or may not be well behaved. They are great for comfort, friendship and overall health. These animals are owned mostly for pleasure, not for work. And they don't have any public access rights. All right, you guys. So hopefully that answer some questions and clarifies things about what is a service dog. How is it different from a therapy dog or an emotional support dog? What rights does an emotional support dog have? And then, you know, most of us recognize we have a companion dog, which is awesome. I love my companion dogs. They do so much for me, but they're not there for a medical reason. They don't need to go to the grocery store with me or to a restaurant with me. Now some of us live in places where it's pretty dog friendly. And if the owner of the establishment says dogs are welcome, that's awesome. However, we need to respect them in the local businesses and their rights as well. And if they say, you know, service dogs only, then we need to leave our companion dogs or emotional support dogs or our therapy dogs at home. Thanks for listening today, your guys. Hey, if you want to be a member of my online puppy school, I would love to help train your dog. I have a code for you. If you want to put that in and check out, it will save you some money type in PCs t 35 h with capital letters, and I hope to see you inside. You guys have an amazing week Happy training, and I will talk to you next week. If you have a question about anything you heard on this podcast or any other puppy training questions, visit my sight. Baxter and Bella dot com to contact me