[RedChariot]

Originally Posted by Wing-nut2

We, at Delta Society, have been receiving an increase in inquiries from people with psychiatric concerns whose doctors have prescribed they keep a pet with them to calm anxiety or provide needed emotional support. They call when they are denied access to public places and don’t understand why this happens since they have a ‘Psychiatric or Comfort Service Animal’. Based upon how the law is currently written, the vast majority of these animals do not qualify as a service animal.

The Americans with Disabilities Act, 1990, (ADA), defines service animal as: “any animal individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of a person with a disability.” The ADA defines a disability as: “a mental or physical condition which substantially limits a major life activity such as caring for one’s self, performing manual tasks, walking, seeing, hearing, speaking, breathing, learning and working.”

PictureTo be considered a service animal, the animal must be trained to perform tasks directly related to the person’s disability. “Comforting” or “giving love”, although clinically proven to be beneficial for people, is not acknowledged as a trained “task” by the Department of Justice, which enforces the ADA.

Some examples of trained tasks performed by psychiatric service animals include:
* bringing medication to alleviate symptoms,
* bringing a beverage so their person can swallow medication,
* bringing a phone to their person in an emergency,
* answering the door bell, or
* calling 911 or summoning help in an emergency.

Hope this helps.

So if I am understanding this correctly, these people coming into our restaurants with cutesy dogs in or out of the strollers, are a fraud??? And the managers of the restaurants lack the knowledge to interpret the law, thus are intimidated?