Psychiatric Service Dogs & Emotional Support Animals: Access to Public Places & Other Settings

Service dogs play an essential role in the lives of many individuals with disabilities. Federal law grants certain rights and protections to people with disabilities who use guide dogs or service animals—including psychiatric service animals, which are sometimes confused with emotional support animals (ESAs).

Federal disability rights laws treat psychiatric service dogs and ESAs differently depending on the context, while state laws offer varied protections. This article examines the rules governing psychiatric service dogs and emotional support animals in public "accommodations" (places), housing, and air travel.

Access to Public Places and the ADA

Different laws govern the use of service animals in different contexts. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) governs the use of service dogs in public places. The ADA guarantees people with disabilities who use service dogs equal access to public places, such as:

• restaurants
• hospitals
• hotels
• theaters
• shops, and
• government buildings.

This means that these places must allow service dogs, and the ADA requires them to modify their practices, if necessary, to accommodate the animals.

But these protections only apply to dogs that satisfy the ADA's definition of "service animal." The ADA defines a service animal as a dog "individually trained" to "perform tasks for the benefit of an individual with a disability." The tasks your service dog performs must be directly related to your disability. (28 C.F.R. § 36.104.)

A "helper monkey" or a cat can't qualify as a service animal under the ADA, which limits the definition of service animals to dogs. In some limited circumstances, the ADA requires public places to accommodate people who use individually trained miniature horses as service animals. (28 C.F.R. § 36.302(c)(9).)

The best-known examples of service dogs are guide dogs that help blind people navigate safely around obstacles. Service dogs can also be trained to assist:

• deaf individuals (hearing dogs)
• wheelchair-users and people with other mobility impairments, and
• people with psychiatric, intellectual, or other mental disabilities.

Service Dogs vs. Emotional Support Animals

Some service dogs are trained to assist people with psychiatric or emotional disabilities. And some people derive emotional support and comfort from dogs, cats, and other "emotional support animals" (ESAs). But psychiatric service dogs and ESAs are different.

What Are Psychiatric Service Dogs?

"Psychiatric service dogs" are trained to provide assistance to people with psychiatric disabilities, such as severe depression, anxiety disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Examples of work or tasks that psychiatric service dogs perform include:

• providing safety checks or room searches for individuals with PTSD
• blocking persons in dissociative episodes from wandering into danger (for example, traffic), and
• preventing or interrupting impulsive or destructive behaviors, such as self-mutilation.

What Are Emotional Support Animals?

Emotional support animals—whether dogs or other types of animals—aren't specially trained to perform specific tasks directly related to someone's psychiatric disability. Because they lack specialized training, the ADA considers ESAs different from psychiatric service dogs and treats them differently.

For instance, the ADA doesn't grant the owners of emotional support dogs the same right of access to public places that it gives to those who use psychiatric service dogs. So, although movie theaters must allow psychiatric service dogs to accompany their owners inside the auditorium, they can refuse to admit a disabled person with an ESA.

The Difference Between a Psychiatric Service Dog and an Emotional Support Dog

It isn't always clear—to staff at public places, and even to some people with disabilities—whether an animal accompanying someone with a psychiatric disability or impairment is performing a psychiatric service or simply providing emotional support. Confusion can lead to unlawful and discriminatory treatment of people with disabilities.

The key distinction to remember is that a psychiatric service animal is actually trained to perform certain tasks, and those tasks are directly related to an individual's psychiatric disability. The dog's primary role isn't to provide emotional support but to help its owner accomplish vital tasks they couldn't perform independently.

In addition, a psychiatric service dog must be trained to both recognize when its owner needs help and respond accordingly. To qualify as a service dog, it must be able to perform both tasks independently.

By contrast, an emotional support dog is a pet that's not trained to perform specific acts directly related to its owner's psychiatric disability. Instead, the pet's owner simply derives a sense of well-being, safety, or calm from the dog's companionship and physical presence.

The companionship of an emotional support dog can have genuine therapeutic benefits for individuals with psychiatric disabilities and some mental impairments. But unless the dog is also trained to work—to independently recognize and respond to its owner's psychiatric disability—the dog doesn't qualify as a psychiatric service dog and doesn't receive the protections of the ADA.

For example, people with social phobia might only feel safe enough to leave their home for food or medication if their dog accompanies them. Such a dog would be considered an emotional support animal.

But if the same person is prone to dissociative episodes when they leave home, and their dog is trained to recognize and respond to the onset of such an episode by nudging, barking, or removing the individual to a safe location, then the dog could qualify as a psychiatric service dog.

How State Laws Treat Psychiatric Service Dogs and ESAs

Some states have laws that provide broader protection than the ADA as far as public accomodations rules. For example, while the ADA only applies to qualified individuals with a disability, Rhode Island's service animal law extends those protections to cover trainers of personal assistance animals as well. (R.I. Gen. Laws § 40-9.1-1.1(6).)

On the other hand, several states have disability discrimination laws that, unlike federal laws, exclude psychiatric service dogs from protection. That doesn't mean that the ADA doesn't apply in those states. It means that psychiatric service dog owners simply don't have additional rights under state laws in these places. Public accommodations must follow both the ADA and state laws. So, when federal law applies and offers more protection for someone with a disability, the ADA overrides the more restrictive state law.

When Federal Law Protects Your Right to Have an Emotional Support Animal

While the ADA governs the use of service dogs and emotional support animals in public places, two other federal laws govern the use of emotional service animals in housing and on commercial aircraft:

• the Fair Housing Act (FHA), and
• the Air Carrier Access Act (ACAA).

The Fair Housing Act and Emotional Support Animals

Under the Fair Housing Act, someone with a disability might be able to keep an emotional support animal—which can include animals other than dogs—in a housing facility that otherwise doesn't allow pets. If you have a disability, the FHA requires housing providers to permit you to have an "assistance animal," which includes ESAs, as a reasonable accommodation if you need an accomodation to have an equal opportunity to use and enjoy the housing.

To qualify for FHA protection, the assistance your animal provides must be directly related to your disability. Your landlord can ask for documentation of your disability-related need for an emotional support animal.

Emotional Support Animals on Airlines

The federal Air Carrier Access Act (ACAA) requires commercial airlines to permit service animals to accompany passengers with disabilities on flights. As of January 10, 2021, a U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) rule amended the requirements for traveling with service animals and emotional support animals. (85 F.R. 79742.)

The rule requires airlines to treat trained psychiatric service animals the same as other service animals, with no special documentation from a mental health professional. But the rule allows airlines to impose additional restrictions on service animals, including limiting service animals rules to dogs and requiring people with disabilities to submit forms attesting to the dogs' training, good behavior, and health. (Learn more about the rules for flying with service dogs.)

The DOT rule changed the ACAA's definition of service animals to exclude emotional support animals specifically, allowing airlines to treat ESAa like pets rather than service animals. (14 C.F.R. § 382.3.) Under the new rule, if you want to bring your emotional support animal on the plane, you might have to pay extra fees and meet all the restrictions of flying with pets.