Life of Purpose: Emotional Support Dogs

​Science has proven time and time again the overwhelming benefit that animals have on our lives. Primarily, the effect that stroking an animal has on keeping people calm, reducing anxiety, and alleviating the symptoms of depression. Think about your own life. How many times have you come home after a bad day and snuggling up on the couch with your cat or dog suddenly made your day 10x better? What about going for a horseback ride after a busy week? Did that ride leave you feeling calm and refreshed? Maybe in your spare time you volunteer at the local shelter. Does playing with the kittens or stroking a dog make you feel happy and relaxed? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then congratulations! You have successfully proved the scientific belief that animals make our lives better.
 
This post is the first in a series of posts I’ll write about the various purposes a dog can fill in your life. Giving a dog a purpose keeps them happy, because all dogs want more out of life than just sleeping and eating treats all day. Here, I’ll talk about what an emotional support animal is, who they can help, and how an ESA differs from other working dogs. Emotional support animals can be any animal, but for the purpose of this post, I’ll be referring to dogs as emotional support animals.

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What is an Emotional Support Animal (ESA)

​An emotional support animal is an animal that provides emotional comfort for its owner. Emotional support animals can be any animal and don’t need to have special training, since their primary purpose is to provide a presence for their owner. This means that birds, horses, dogs, cats, snakes, lizards, pigs, and more can be emotional support animals. 

Is an ESA the Same as a Service or Therapy Dog?

In short, no. Service and Therapy dogs are types of working dogs. Emotional support dogs are not working dogs. 

Categories	Emotional Support Animals or Dogs	Service/Assistance Dogs	Therapy Dogs
Description of Owner's Health ​Status	​Owner finds comfort in animal’s presence, but dog or animal isn't trained to mitigate a disability. Owner may or may not be disabled at all.	​Handler is disabled and dog helps them manage their disability	​Handler is NOT disabled; dog goes to visit schools and hospitals
Public Access Rights of the Handler/Owner	Only pet friendly stores ***Sometimes permitted to go to therapy sessions with owner	Anywhere with disabled handler that the general public is permitted	Pet friendly stores. Also, nursing homes, hospitals, and schools but only while on duty.
Are They Protected Under Fair Housing Act? What About the Air Carrier Access Act for Flying?	​Can get housing accommodations if have a doctor’s note stating the importance of ESA Not granted accommodations on flights.	Full housing accommodation rights, with or without a doctor’s note ​Permitted to ride in cabin with handler at feet or on lap.	​No housing accommodations granted ​No flight accommodations granted
Level of Training	​Not required to be trained. Might have obedience & manner, might not. Some may take the AKC Canine Good Citizen Test	Extensive special training that spans 2-3 years or a lifetime	​Advanced training, but not as extensive as service dog training
Type of Animal	Any Animal	Dogs primarily, though some handlers use miniature horses. Miniature horses have different guidelines.	Primarily dogs and miniature horses, though other animals may be used depending on setting
Purpose	​Companion to owner and assisting in various activities to keep owner calm, comfortable, and confident	​Perform tasks to help handler manage disability such as opening doors, finding help, bracing, alerting to seizures, etc	​Visit with young children, sick people, and people in nursing homes to provide comfort. Some also participate in programs where kids learn to read by reading stories to the dogs.

Who Can Benefit from an ESA?

The owner does not have to be disabled to have an emotional support animal, unlike a service dog which is only for people with disabilities. Some of the things that an emotional support animal can help an owner cope with are:

• Depression
• Anxiety
• Autism
• Stress
• Grief
• Mental illnesses
• Chronic pain
• PTSD

Note that several of the above examples may be severe enough to be considered a disability, but that doesn't mean they necessarily need a service dog's assistance. Some people start out having an emotional support animal and as their problems progress, they make the decision to owner-train and transform their ESA into a service dog who can help them rebuild their quality of life. Not every ESA is cut out to be a service dog, however, and not every owner has what it takes to spend years training their dog to perform tasks and deal with public access. That’s ok, though, because ESAs have an outstanding impact on an owner’s life just as companions. If you have an ESA, but are interested in training him or her to be a service dog, keep in mind that it will take a lot of work, and just buying a vest online does not automatically qualify them as a working dog. 

Training for an ESA

Unlike service dogs, police dogs, or therapy dogs, emotional support animals do not need special training to be qualified for providing comfort to the owners. That being said, having a well-trained animal can make your life less stressful, and the animal's less stressful because they are better prepared to be what you need them to be. I recently discovered that some organizations feel it is unfair for an individual with health problems to be expected to train their emotional dog, which, in my opinion, is an unfair assumption in itself. Plenty of disabled individuals train their own pets or working dogs, and those who can't are able to find a dog trainer who could help them do it. Therefore, there shouldn't be an excuse as to why emotional support dogs don't have basic manners and responsiveness to cues. 

Below is a list of commands and exercises that any dog should know. These commands and exercises will make it easier to handle your dog, and may pave the road for future training goals such as agility, hunting, sporting events, nature walks, working, and more.
 

• Sit - butt on floor
• Down - belly on floor
• ​Heel - walk calmly by my side, without pulling
• Come - come to me
• Leave It - ignore that and go away from it
• Bed - go to your bed and lay down there
• A correction marker and a praise marker, to let them know when they do something wrong or right
• Quiet - stop whining, barking, growling, etc
• Snuggle - command for them to come and lay in your lap or with their head on you to provide deep pressure therapy or a comforting presence at the very least
• Waiting at a door threshold for permission to exit, instead of darting out the open doorway
• Getting in and out of the car without struggling or knocking over the owner
• Waiting patiently at mealtimes without jumping up on owner or being aggressive about food
• Being around new people, new places, new sounds, etc and not freaking out
• Respecting boundaries that their owner dictates, such as not chewing furniture, staying nearby when off-leash, and not terrorizing other family pets or children

Obviously, if you have an animal other than a dog as your ESA, it may be hard to train them. But, the benefit of an animal that has shown capacity to be an emotional support system for you means that they are already in tune with your states of mind and choose on their own to intervene. 

• Birds coming to sit on an owner’s shoulder when the owner gets anxious
• Horses head pressing into your chest when you're upset
• Cats interrupting an owner from doing self-harm acts, without being given a cue

Conclusion

An emotional support animal does not need training in the same way that other working dogs do. ESAs don’t need special training to learn how to be in-tune with their owner, and their purpose in life is to be with their owner and provide comfort just by being there. Many animals can sense when their owner is sick or sad or anxious, and they will respond by voluntarily curling up in their owner’s lap or interrupt a self-harm episode. Other benefit their handler just by being there and needing daily care. Someone struggling with depression can greatly benefit from having a dog that needs to go out, go for a walk, or have playtime because it forces them to get out of bed and do something. It encourages them to focus on something other than their own worries, and over time that dog’s presence can heal them and give them a new quality of life that they never would have dreamed was possible. Companion animals can make a profound impact on a person’s life, and the people who adopt them change their lives as well. Some people believe that they saved their dog and the dog saved them. That’s a pretty awesome purpose for a dog to have, in my opinion!

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If you want to teach your Emotional Support Dog simple house manners, commands to be able to communicate with them better, or fun games to do together, check out our Training Courses (anything not explicitly labelled for service dogs is open to pet owners), or send me an email!