What is a Service Dog?

Before we get into too many detailed posts, we want to make sure we start off with basic Service Dog Information. We will start with how a Service Animal is defined, according to current United States Federal Law. In the future, we'll get more detailed, but let's just start here. According to United States Federal Law,

"The ADA defines a service animal as any guide dog, signal dog, or other animal individually trained to provide assistance to an individual with a disability. If they meet this definition, animals are considered service animals under the ADA regardless of whether they have been licensed or certified by a state or local government.

Service animals perform some of the functions and tasks that the individual with a disability cannot perform for him or herself. "Seeing eye dogs" are one type of service animal, used by some individuals who are blind. This is the type of service animal with which most people are familiar. But there are service animals that assist persons with other kinds of disabilities in their day-to-day activities. Some examples include:



_____Alerting persons with hearing impairments to sounds.



_____ Pulling wheelchairs or carrying and picking up things for persons with mobility impairments.



_____Assisting persons with mobility impairments with balance."

There - we now have the basic definition for what a Service Dog is - it does get a bit grayer than just this, but we'll cover that later.