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Comment by mtlynch | Hacker News Reader

Honest question: how can you distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate therapy dogs if the owner doesn't have a visible handicap?

Like what if a veteran struggling with PTSD has a therapy dog to help keep them emotionally regulated? Or is that a fake service animal by your defintion?

I agree that people abuse this system, but if you're publicly shaming people, how do you avoid false positives?

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Emotional support animals that don't perform a specific task never qualify as service animals; whether the human has any particular diagnosis doesn't matter.

Right, but how would one know just from walking by someone in the park whether their support animal performs a specific task?

If you're a business ask the two legally permited questions (from the ADA):

- Is the dog a service animal required because of a disability?

- What work or task has the dog been trained to perform?

Most of the time the second question will throw off the fake owners.

No, I get that. I was responding specifically to the idea of going around trying to publicly shame people based on just seeing them with their service animal.

> Like what if a veteran struggling with PTSD has a therapy dog to help keep them emotionally regulated?

Is that actually a real thing? As in: I'm sure some people struggling with PTSD greatly benefit from their pets, but do they really need them at their sides 24/7 for "emotional support" and can't do some shopping without one?

One example I’ve heard of (not endorsing the veracity, just something I’ve heard) is dogs being trained to recognize panic attacks and respond by lifting itself up and rest its forelegs on its owners shoulders and its chest on its owners chest, basically giving them a hug (which is adorable, tragedy aside).

So yes, in that context they’d be there 24/7, or near enough, but obviously that’s a different story from someone’s yorkie yapping at the DMV or whatever.

I don't have any special domain knowledge in this space, but I know that's an advertised use case for emotional support animals.[0]

I don't know if the client needs the service animal around 24/7, but if you have severe PTSD and could experience severe symptoms unexpectedly while shopping, it seems reasonable to bring along the support animal.

[0] https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/service-dogs-m...

That's kind of what I mean: reading that page, it just sounds like normal pet ownership, with many of the benefits that many pet owners get. That's a great thing to encourage and research, but it's not clear to me why there needs to be a special "emotional support animal" classification or the like.

Yes (https://theherocompany.co/pages/about-us?zCountry=US)

Generally the behavior of the animal is a dead give away. Trained service animals don't wander away from their owners, seek attention from strangers, react to other animals, eat things off of the ground, and will sit directly beside their owners or under a table if so instructed. If you see a dog behaving differently, that dog isn't a trained service animal.

Legit service dogs are legit, go watch footage of them working. I'll probably eventually be wrong someday and have to apologize profusely but that's the risk you run.

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