5 ms·

Do they train emotional support animals to be used to unusual environments? I suppose it must be roughly the same sort of training given to sight assistance dog

Do they train emotional support animals to be used to unusual environments? I suppose it must be roughly the same sort of training given to sight assistance dogs. I'm pretty sure if I took either of my dogs on an aircraft, for example, any emotional benefit I derived would be countered by their extreme anxiety and fright.

mturmon 9y ago
My family had a licensed therapy dog. For about 3-4 years, he did weekly dog therapy at a nearby foster facility for adolescent boys. The particular benefit to those kids was that they had a chance to love a creature, when of course their own family was not present to extend love to them. This was a big deal for some of those kids. They had a rough life - the facility was OK, but there's no avoiding the circumstances: you have no parents. The licensing that we got (as of ~15 years ago) was nowhere near the level that is given to sight assistance dogs. However, other license authorities (I think it was TDI) were more strenuous, and my dog would not have passed them. For instance, therapy dogs had to be calm if a rabbit or cat was nearby. I'm not sure what regulations are in place now, I assume it must have tightened up since then. In pre-9/11 days, my dog rode in the airplane cabin twice. He was chill, even calmed another passenger down on the outbound 3-hour flight by sitting in their lap.
- kec 9y ago
  If you're in the US, any license you got was snake oil. There is no licensure for service or emotional support/therapy animals. There are no legal requirements or standards for either in terms of training either, the only standard is that if the animal is being disruptive they can ask you to remove it, but must then provide reasonable accommodation to the disabled person in the animal's absence.
  - astura 9y ago
    No, they didn't get "snake oil." The particular foster care facility (or government) required a dog visiting their children to be licensed by ${company} before it was allowed into the facility. The GP had their dog go through the requirements ${company} specified and ${company} gave the dog their seal of approval. It's exactly like if a company requires you to get a professional certification from, say, Oracle. It's also pretty reasonable. if they are going to let dogs around their residents that they'd want a third party making sure the dog has a temperament suitable for that and certain amount of training - the facility doesn't know how to tell if a dog would be fit for that purpose. It's like saying getting your video game rated by the ESRB is "snake oil" because "there's no legal requirements or standards for rating video games." Yet if you want to sell your video game at Walmart or Toys R Us you're going to have to get it rated by the ESRB. You're also confused about where the "reasonable accommodations" comes in.
    - kec 9y ago
      The difference is that the ADA has standards which do not require licensure. You cannot legally require someone show you a service dog license. Where emotional support animals are protected by law (namely, housing and air transport) you also cannot require a license (though in those cases you can require a letter from a health professional stating the need). Requiring or claiming to provide licensure for animals outside of what the laws state and require is scummy and just confuses the issue as to what is and isn't allowed by law.
  - mturmon 9y ago
    >> ...any license you got was snake oil. ... [In Los Angeles County, USA] This is phrased rudely, but has an element of truth. The facility (it's a county facility) wanted the therapy dog to be "licensed," and we went through the process to do some training, and got a vest, a patch, and a certificate (http://www.tdi-dog.org http://www.tdi-dog.org - I forget what the more rigorous one was). I doubt that we paid anything to TDI beyond a nominal fee, so that association of "snake oil" is off base. But like I said, and as you note, the "therapy dog" process was highly variable, and it's not like there was some kind of national standard. And I would add that we did take unfair advantage of the airline exception for therapy dogs - this was in 2000 or so, before they really came into vogue - and I was uncomfortable with doing that, although I was overruled. ;-)
jahewson 9y ago
No. Emotional support animals are not required to have, nor do they typically have, any training. There is no statutory licensing process. There are ad hoc groups who offer various certifications which other private parties may require, e.g. in a care home. But it’s up to them. Services animals on the other hand are extensively trained at a cost upwards of $30,000 dollars. It’s really not easy to get a dog to behave like that.
astura 9y ago
No, and that's the problem. There's no "they," the idea of emotional support animals is that a person with a disability (including mild depression) gets a health care provider to write a note saying in their opinion having a pet will be beneficial to the patient and improve at least one symptom of the disability. Then the patient can get any pet from any source, including a backyard puppy mill, without any training whatsoever. Then certain people/organizations are required to make "reasonable accommodations," including airlines. Even worse, there's services online that you can pay a small fee for a doctor's note. Or you can just buy an ID or vest from Amazon,that looks official, or have a friend write you a letter, it's not like the airline is realistically going to check the medical credentials of the "doctor." You can see where this is going...This of course ends up creating a loophole used solely for avoiding pet fees airline charge and having pets in a "no pets" apartment. It's a shame because the few bad apples ruin the bunch. People who have maladapted pets and/or no consideration for others around them cause trouble. That being said, places required to "make reasonable accommodations" for ESAs can deny boarding to unruly pets because that's not "reasonable." But for staff it's difficult to tell how the animal would react until they actually are in the air.

mturmon 9y ago

My family had a licensed therapy dog. For about 3-4 years, he did weekly dog therapy at a nearby foster facility for adolescent boys. The particular benefit to those kids was that they had a chance to love a creature, when of course their own family was not present to extend love to them. This was a big deal for some of those kids. They had a rough life - the facility was OK, but there's no avoiding the circumstances: you have no parents. The licensing that we got (as of ~15 years ago) was nowhere near the level that is given to sight assistance dogs. However, other license authorities (I think it was TDI) were more strenuous, and my dog would not have passed them. For instance, therapy dogs had to be calm if a rabbit or cat was nearby. I'm not sure what regulations are in place now, I assume it must have tightened up since then. In pre-9/11 days, my dog rode in the airplane cabin twice. He was chill, even calmed another passenger down on the outbound 3-hour flight by sitting in their lap.

kec 9y ago
If you're in the US, any license you got was snake oil. There is no licensure for service or emotional support/therapy animals. There are no legal requirements or standards for either in terms of training either, the only standard is that if the animal is being disruptive they can ask you to remove it, but must then provide reasonable accommodation to the disabled person in the animal's absence.
- astura 9y ago
  No, they didn't get "snake oil." The particular foster care facility (or government) required a dog visiting their children to be licensed by ${company} before it was allowed into the facility. The GP had their dog go through the requirements ${company} specified and ${company} gave the dog their seal of approval. It's exactly like if a company requires you to get a professional certification from, say, Oracle. It's also pretty reasonable. if they are going to let dogs around their residents that they'd want a third party making sure the dog has a temperament suitable for that and certain amount of training - the facility doesn't know how to tell if a dog would be fit for that purpose. It's like saying getting your video game rated by the ESRB is "snake oil" because "there's no legal requirements or standards for rating video games." Yet if you want to sell your video game at Walmart or Toys R Us you're going to have to get it rated by the ESRB. You're also confused about where the "reasonable accommodations" comes in.
  - kec 9y ago
    The difference is that the ADA has standards which do not require licensure. You cannot legally require someone show you a service dog license. Where emotional support animals are protected by law (namely, housing and air transport) you also cannot require a license (though in those cases you can require a letter from a health professional stating the need). Requiring or claiming to provide licensure for animals outside of what the laws state and require is scummy and just confuses the issue as to what is and isn't allowed by law.
- mturmon 9y ago
  >> ...any license you got was snake oil. ... [In Los Angeles County, USA] This is phrased rudely, but has an element of truth. The facility (it's a county facility) wanted the therapy dog to be "licensed," and we went through the process to do some training, and got a vest, a patch, and a certificate (http://www.tdi-dog.org http://www.tdi-dog.org - I forget what the more rigorous one was). I doubt that we paid anything to TDI beyond a nominal fee, so that association of "snake oil" is off base. But like I said, and as you note, the "therapy dog" process was highly variable, and it's not like there was some kind of national standard. And I would add that we did take unfair advantage of the airline exception for therapy dogs - this was in 2000 or so, before they really came into vogue - and I was uncomfortable with doing that, although I was overruled. ;-)

jahewson 9y ago

No. Emotional support animals are not required to have, nor do they typically have, any training. There is no statutory licensing process. There are ad hoc groups who offer various certifications which other private parties may require, e.g. in a care home. But it’s up to them. Services animals on the other hand are extensively trained at a cost upwards of $30,000 dollars. It’s really not easy to get a dog to behave like that.

astura 9y ago

No, and that's the problem. There's no "they," the idea of emotional support animals is that a person with a disability (including mild depression) gets a health care provider to write a note saying in their opinion having a pet will be beneficial to the patient and improve at least one symptom of the disability. Then the patient can get any pet from any source, including a backyard puppy mill, without any training whatsoever. Then certain people/organizations are required to make "reasonable accommodations," including airlines. Even worse, there's services online that you can pay a small fee for a doctor's note. Or you can just buy an ID or vest from Amazon,that looks official, or have a friend write you a letter, it's not like the airline is realistically going to check the medical credentials of the "doctor." You can see where this is going...This of course ends up creating a loophole used solely for avoiding pet fees airline charge and having pets in a "no pets" apartment. It's a shame because the few bad apples ruin the bunch. People who have maladapted pets and/or no consideration for others around them cause trouble. That being said, places required to "make reasonable accommodations" for ESAs can deny boarding to unruly pets because that's not "reasonable." But for staff it's difficult to tell how the animal would react until they actually are in the air.