Assistance animals have become real salvation making life easier for disabled people. A few years ago, guide dog was the only acceptable type of service animals. Nowadays there are plenty of varieties of service animals, which are expressly disciplined to ease the symptoms of a person’s disability.
A service animal is attached to people with congenital dysfunctions or people with acquired ones, for example, to veterans. The learning process of an assistance animal can take up to two or three years. It can also differ, depending on one’s disability-related needs The most widespread assistance animals are dogs. They can be both a service animal and an emotional support animal. But in case you want to get an ESA letter for your pet, first of all, you must obtain a specific ESA letter from any mental health professional, such as a psychotherapist or psychiatrist. This paper contains all the information regarding why the patient needs an emotional support animal. Yet, not all breeds of dogs can be taught to assist people. Furthermore, for the last few years, other variations of animals are chosen more and more often, for example, miniature horses. There are a lot of options to register your service dog, you can ask for it in your menthal doctor or order registration online.
When is it recommended to have a service animal?
A service animal is an especially tamed kind of animal that is educated to dо work or perform assignments for the profit of humans with physical and emotional inabilities. Service animals are not pets but health professionals. So they are granted to follow their owners everywhere he or she goes. An assistance animal shouldn’t wear a muzzle and its handler isn’t obliged with a pet’s fee.
Service dogs or miniature horses can be guides for people with visual deteriorations. They can also be alarms for people with deafness, giving the owner signals when the animal hears, for example, a knock at the door or any unusual sounds. If a person has seizures, for example, epileptic ones, the animal may provide its handler with the first aid or call someone for help.
Service animals can also be taught to perform simple tasks in the household. They can turn lights on and off, upload and unload laundry, search for and bring to their handler required staff, and help a person with mobility issues move to the needed location. An individual with a disability can lean on the service animal while walking. The animal assistants can also roll a wheelchair.
What else can animals do?
Another type of help that can be obtained from the pets is emotional sustenance. Emotional support animals, or ESAs, are considered the real experts in this field. Although ESAs aren’t considered service animals by the Americans with Disabilities Act, experts in many countries believe that mental health or safety is as important as physical. That’s why doctors think that it’s more correct to call ESAs psychiatric service animals. ESA’s advantages for a person with a disability are enormous. They give emotional support that is essential to overcome depression, anxiety, and panic attacks. This kind of assistance animal can help people to get rid of various emotional illnesses, including overthinking, obsessive thoughts, phobias, and fears.
A dog or a miniature horse improves the overall mood of its owner, raises the level of self-confidence, promotes socialization, and making new friends and acquaintances. Animals are taught to cope with people’s personality disorders, like post-traumatic stress disorder, sociopathic disorder, or eating disorder.
Nevertheless, emotional support animals still don’t have the official status of service animals. That’s why their freedoms are limited compared to other assistance animals. ADA doesn’t establish their rights officially, so, ESAs’ handlers have to look for flows in federal laws, hoping to make the rights of an emotional support animal wider.
Accommodation rules for an assistance animal
According to the Fair Housing Act (FHA), which is aimed to avoid any humans rights violation, all people have equal opportunity in the housing field. A service animal must be allowed to live with its handler in places of public accommodation, even if there is a pets ban set by housing providers.
People with disabilities may make a reasonable accommodation request. This application and a doctor’s note must be sufficient basis of inhabitation of a service animal and its owner in decent living conditions. A landlord cannot require an additional payment for animal living, at the same time, housing providers may require the deposit. This extra money is a guarantee of the security of the landlord’s belongings and the safety of others.
Some extra information that you should know about the animal ownership
Many people still believe that any animal іs a threat to the health of others. That’s why it’s substantial to explain that a service animal is a specially trained animal that aims, primarily, the facilitation of the life of the human with a disability. It can only be a threat while protecting its handler from strangers with bad intentions. In accordance with ADA, a service dog can follow its owner to any public place, for example, catering places or the cabin of an aircraft.
Everybody should remember that the rights of a service animal and its owner are protected by state and local government. According to the FHA, ADA, and other federal laws, any discrimination or offense of a person’s own rights is unacceptable in modern society. If a person has noticed intolerance based on the disability, he or she may file a complaint to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development or the Department of Justice.
