What are service animals used for?

Answer 1

In most countries, Assistance Animals are broken down into three sub-categories: Guide Dogs, Hearing Dogs, and Service Animals (everything other than guide or hearing dogs). In the U.S., the term Service Animal is used generically to mean any kind of assistance animal, including both guide and hearing dogs.

The Codes of Federal Regulation for the Americans with Disabilities Act defines "service animal" as "any guide dog, signal dog, or other 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 with impaired vision, alerting individuals with impaired hearing to intruders or sounds, providing minimal protection or rescue work, pulling a wheelchair, or fetching dropped items." The U.S. Department of Justice goes further in their technical assistance papers to explain that "[a]nimals whose sole function is to provide emotional support, comfort, therapy, companionship, therapeutic benefits, or promote emotional well-being are not service animals.''

The Department further believes "that it is necessary to eliminate from coverage all wild animals, whether born or bred in captivity or the wild. Some animals, such as nonhuman primates, pose a direct threat to safety based on behavior that can be aggressive and violent without notice or provocation."

In an upcoming re-issuance of the Codes of Federal Regulation pertaining to service animals, the Department intends to add to the existing definition of service animal that "service animal'' does not include wild animals (including nonhuman primates born in captivity), reptiles, rabbits, farm animals (including any breed of horse, pony, miniature horse, pig, and goat), ferrets, amphibians, and rodents." Service animals are trained to perform tasks for their disabled owners. Guide dogs lead the blind around obstacles they cannot see and hearing dogs signal the deaf about sounds they cannot hear. Some service dogs pick up dropped items, open or close doors, or operate buttons or switches for owners in wheelchairs or with limited use of their hands.

I think you are talking about assistance dogs. Most assistance dogs are large, intelligent breeds such as retrievers (the Labrador and Golden are most common) and German Shepherds. However, some assistance dogs are tiny. I know a boy with cerebral palsy who cannot speak, stand or walk - his assistance dog is a tiny spaniel/longhaired chihuahua cross. Assistance dogs have many names. They are also called service dogs for one. All assistance dogs must undergo a rigorous temperament test and then a lot of training to ensure they are intelligent, friendly and up to the job. Many assistance dogs are trained to help disabled people lead normal lives. Others perform duties such as sniffing out banned material being smuggled through Customs, finding drugs and explosives, clearing minefields, tracking criminals, killing snakes and finding lost people. Some dogs are also therapy dogs. Most therapy dogs visit people who are in hospital or institutions to cheer them up. Therapy dogs do the rounds of local hospitals, hospices, mental institutions, nursing homes etc. and visit the residents. Just having an animal lying beside the bed can make a remarkable difference to some of these people. Dogs that help blind people are called guide dogs for the blind or simply guide dogs. They act as the eyes of a person with little or no eyesight, guiding them around obstacles, making sure they have a clear path and alerting them to visual signals they might have missed. Dogs that help deaf people are called assistance dogs for the deaf. They alert deaf people to sounds such as the doorbell, sirens or the telephone and perform many other everyday tasks. Some assistance dogs do not specialise in a particular condition. They are teamed with disabled people and learn to help them in the unique ways that will make their lives easier. Some of these ways include pulling a disabled person's wheelchair when they are tired, or detecting when an epileptic person is about to have a fit. Some dogs have been trained to press buttons that dial the emergency number and play a prerecorded message giving the name, address and condition of the person the dog is teamed with. Search And Rescue or SAR dogs are trained to sniff out trails to find people who are missing. There are remarkable stories of people being found by SAR dogs after days or weeks, alive. Police dogs are generally ferocious-looking but perfectly trained. They will sniff out and apprehend a criminal at great risk to themselves. Explosive detection dogs will sniff airport traffic to thwart terrorism attempts. They also clear minefields by sniffing out the mines so that they can be destroyed safely. Drug detection dogs have been responsible for some of the greatest drug busts in history, hauling in millions of dollars worth of illicit drugs. Customs dogs detect food and animals that have been illegally brought into a country, that may pose quarantine risks. All of these dogs are loyal, dedicated animals that make our lives easier. 'Assistance dog' usually refers to a dog that helps the disabled. 'Service dog' applies to all the dogs above. They also have particular names based on the duties they perform. These names are not dependant on gender. Most also have personal names given to them by their owners and trainers. I know three assistance dogs. Their names are Piper, Max and Bailey.

Answer 2

I'm sure that many animals can be trained to help disabled people, but you mainly hear about dogs helping the disabled. (labs, some mutts, retrievers and German shepards)

There are also canaries that help miners when the air getts dangerous.

There are mice being trained to track bird flu.

There are monkeys that are being trained to help disabled people.
Service animals are simply any animal that provides a service to a person, place or thing.

Answer 3

In the United States, only a dog or miniature horse can be considered a service animal. Emotional support animals are not covered under the ADA or considered service animals as of March 2011.

To have a service dog a person must be legally disabled under ADA standards. Then there must be a task or tasks, that the person cannot do themselves, that's directly to their disability, that a dog can be trained to perform.

For a dog to be considered a service dog, the dog must be trained to perform a task or tasks that the disabled person cannot do, that the dog can be trained to do, that's directly related to and mitigates their disability.

Service dogs go through up to two years of intense training. Dogs that are non-aggressive, healthy and driven to please are the best candidates though there's never a guarantee that the animal won't wash out before graduation. Actually, most do. A good training organization will never force a dog to do work that it doesn't enjoy doing. The dogs that flunk out are rehomed as therapy dogs to visit hospitals and nursing homes (with permission), as Emotional Support Animals (which are not service animals and are not protected under the ADA) or as beloved pets.

Those that complete training are highly obedience trained; socialized around other animals, people and different environments; trained to stay calm in crowds; are potty trained; are trained to tuck under chairs and tables and lie quietly for long periods; and go through other training before being trained to learn the specific tasks that the disabled individual needs for them to perform to mitigate their disability.

Answer 4

Yes.

The ADA(1990) specifies Service Animals, denoting that other animals can be trained to assist a disabled human. Several Monkeys, Horses (miniture Ponies), and other animals have been trained and are just as legal as a dog. Horses live longer, monkeys have hands. Dogs are just the most common and most accepted in the world.

During the 1990's several exotic animals including reptiles were claimed as service animals, to ensure that non qualified animals are claimed, all service animal MUST PERFORM A SPECIFIC TASK for the disabled handler to assist in their disability.

Most service animal schools teach at least 3 tasks to comply with the law. If the validity of your service animal is questioned you can be ordered by a federal just to prove your disability and demonstrate the tasks the animal performs. (i.e. you have to put a on show for the judge.)
(*EDIT BY RW 1/7/2015)

*As of March 2011, only dogs, and in special cases mini horses, are permitted as service animals per Federal ADA Law.*

The following answer is very out of date and a lot of the information is incorrect. There are many places that train seeing eye dogs (not that that had anything to do with the answer), monkeys are no longer permitted to be service animals unless it's only for home use (not in public) and the wording stated below is not found in the revision. Links are not permitted here so, for more information, please Google "Service Animal ADA Revision" for the entirety of the law.

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Original answer

All Seeing Eye dogs are graduates of the Seeing Eye in Morristown, New Jersey. It is a brand name. The Seeing Eye uses only dogs in their programs, specifically Labrador Retrievers, Golden Retrievers, German Shepherds and certain mixes.

In order to be effective in guiding work, the animal must be a certain size, usually about 60-80 pounds. In addition to programs that train guide dogs, some train miniature horses for guide work.

A guide animal is only one type of service animal. Other species are sometimes used for other types of service work. Under the current wording of the definition of "service animal" in the Codes of Federal Regulation for the Americans with Disabilities Act, any species of animal may be used for service work, including monkeys.

A recent movement to establish guide horses in the U.S. and a trend toward using exotic animals as service animals may be coming to an end. The U.S. Department of Justice announced June 17, 2008 it will be changing the legal definition of "service animal" under the ADA to restrict service animals only to dogs and common domestic animals. The new wording will exclude farm and exotic animals. They plan to add the following to the definition "'service animal' does not include wild animals (including nonhuman primates born in captivity), reptiles, rabbits, farm animals (including any breed of horse, pony, miniature horse, pig, and goat), ferrets, amphibians, and rodents..." This change goes into effect in 2009.
There is some confusion about what constitutes a "service animal." In the United States, the term "service animal" is legally defined as an animal individually trained to do work or perform tasks that mitigate the disability of a disabled handler.

The term "service animal" or "service dog" is also sometimes used in reference to police dogs.

There are many other animals that perform services for humans that are not "service animals," including horses and other beasts of burden, carrier pigeons, sleddogs, hunting dogs, and racing animals.

In the past, the U.S. Department of Justice, which administers the ADA as it applies to the use of service animals in public accommodations, has left open the choice of species. However, this is currently under review and expected to change in January of 2009.

When there is no restriction on species, unfortunately, too many are encouraged to push the boundary or to use disability law to keep exotic pets that would not ordinarily be permitted. We've seen instances of pigs, goats, snakes, birds, hamsters, and fish claimed as service animals. Despite the fact that most of these animals cannot be trained to actually perform any useful tasks. In short, they are comfort animals that cause people to feel better just by their presence.

The U.S. Department of Justice has long had a policy that animals whose sole function is to provide emotional support are not service animals, and now is planning to explicitly include that in the definition of "service animal" as it applies to the ADA. They are also considering restricting the species that can be used either to "common domestic animal" excluding "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," OR only dogs.

The definition of "service animal" under the ADA is under review and a final rule is expected to be published before Barack Obama takes office.

Other contributors have said:

== == === === === === === === * "Seeing Eye" is a brand name. Only animals trained by the Seeing Eye in Morristown, NJ are properly called seeing eye animals and the Seeing Eye trains only dogs. The generic name for dogs that guide the blind is "guide dog." The generic name for animals that assist people with disabilities is "assistance animal." * Dogs are the ones most mentioned for seeing-eye, but, I have heard of pigs. Pigs are under-estimated and are a very intelligent animal. They have also trained dogs, monkeys and pigs to not only help the blind person, but also paraplegics (open the refrigerator, pick up something the person has dropped, get the newspaper, etc.) Assistant Animals: Miniature horses are occasionally used for the blind. Trained African monkeys have been taught to provide other functions for impaired people. Wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_animals#assistance_animal === === * The Seeing Eye only uses dogs. As for guide animals, the most common two species used are dogs and miniature horses. As an Assistance Animal trainer, I have to say I've never heard of a recognized Service Animal school using pigs. There was a case where a person LIED to airlines about a pig being a Service Animal and charges were laid in that case (it is illegal to claim your pet is a Assistance Animal). Monkeys are typically the animal of choice in the case of paraplegia, as their HANDS are what is actually needed to best serve their handler. Cats have been used with some success... and several species have proven their worth in terms of emotional support. === === * My mother had a friend who was given a trained pig because she was a paraplegic and that pig was smart or if not smarter than a dog! Yes, I agree, more dogs are trained in service, but only because they are usually accepted out in public more than any other animal. * The Seeing Eye uses only dogs. As for guide animals, the most common two species used are dogs and miniature horses. Dogs are the ones most mentioned for service animals, but other species can legally be used. A recent movement to establish guide horses in the U.S. may be coming to an end. The U.S. Department of Justice announced June 17, 2008 it will be changing the legal definition of "service animal" under the ADA to restrict service animals only to exclude farm and exotic animals. 'service animal' does not include wild animals (including nonhuman primates born in captivity), reptiles, rabbits, farm animals (including any breed of horse, pony, miniature horse, pig, and goat), ferrets, amphibians, and rodents..." See link below of the Notice of Proposed Rule Making. This change goes into effect in 2009 and is expected to be finalized before the end of President Bush's administration which ends January 20, 2009.

== == * There will be no more goats, pigs, monkeys, horses, or anything like that after the updated ADA changes go into effect in 2009. For those of us who have legitimate service animals, it is a great relief. * Donkeys, mules, horses, camels.
Under the Americans with Disabilities Act only dogs or in some cases miniature horses may be service animals.

Answer 5

Cats can not be used as service animals because they are not trained well, nor are they very dependable.

(*EDIT - Actually, cats ate very trainable but they cannot legally be service animals. Why? As of March 2011, the ADA was revised to only allow dogs, and in special cases mini horses, to be legal service animals. Links aren't permitted here so please Google "Service Animal ADA Revision" for more information.*)

Answer 6

they are used for a lot of things

they help the disabled

they help the police force and sometimes they help the fire department

Answer 7

in the land , there are some smart and skilled monkeys will pick up coconut for you

Answer 8

Only dogs, and in some cases miniature horses, can be service animals.