Types of service animals

Generally speaking, the term "service animals" is not currently limited by law, and therefore could refer to any animals that assist, support or provide service to persons with disabilities. A variety of animals have been trained to provide assistance to an individual with a disability. Among others, monkeys have been used because of their manual dexterity. However, the prevalent service animal is a dog.

There have been widespread abuses of the privileges given to service animals. Among other things, individuals have taken a number of questionable animals into restaurants, hospitals and other establishments, claiming that the animals were service animals. These included pigs, miniature horses, snakes and iguanas. (See Kenneth Phillips, Excerpts from the Federal Register Pertaining to Proposed Rulemaking: Service Animals.)

The federal government therefore is considering limiting which animals can be considered "service animals." The proposed law as of August 2008 is as follows:

Sec. 36.104 Definitions.
...
Service animal means any dog or other common domestic animal individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of an individual with a disability, including, but not limited to, guiding individuals who are blind or have low vision, alerting individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing to the presence of people or sounds, providing minimal protection or rescue work, pulling a wheelchair, fetching items, assisting an individual during a seizure, retrieving medicine or the telephone, providing physical support and assistance with balance and stability to individuals with mobility disabilities, and assisting individuals, including those with cognitive disabilities, with navigation. The term service animal includes individually trained animals that do work or perform tasks for the benefit of individuals with disabilities, including psychiatric, cognitive, and mental disabilities. The term service animal does not include wild animals (including nonhuman primates born in captivity), reptiles, rabbits, farm animals (including any breed of horse, miniature horse, pony, pig, or goat), ferrets, amphibians, and rodents. Animals whose sole function is to provide emotional support, comfort, therapy, companionship, therapeutic benefits, or to promote emotional well-being are not service animals.

Service animals are known by different names that reflect the types of work they perform. Most people have seen or heard about dogs for the blind, commonly referred to as "Seeing Eye Dogs" or "Guide Dogs." Less common are hearing and signal dogs. They alert a hearing-impaired person to a variety of sounds, such as a door bell, usually by going back and forth between their owner and the source of the sound. More generally, assistance dogs perform a wide variety of chores, such as picking up objects, pulling wheelchairs, and protecting a person who is having a seizure.

Therapy dogs are not considered service animals. A service dog directly assists its handicapped owner, and therefore any restriction on the dog is elevated to discrimination against its owner. On the other hand, a therapy dog is handled by its non-disabled owner to assist others at specific times, such as visits to a hospital or nursing home.