Service-Dog Definition Challenged

The article “Some Service Dogs Appear More Equal Than Others” in the January 15 issue raises the insidious intrusion into the public sphere of animals classified as an entitlement by those who claim a need based upon mental illness. To the degree that these rights impose a burden upon others, the public and the profession should rightly examine this emerging trend.

The traditional definition of a service animal is one that “does” something, not something that merely “is”: for example, a seeing-eye dog that helps the owner maneuver versus the “therapy” dog whose mere presence is comforting.

While I can't challenge mentally ill individuals who claim that their animal allows them to take a flight, ride a bus, or enter a store, we must come to grips with the subjective and potentially self-fulfilling nature of this claim and the concurrent burden that this places upon others. This may be as a fellow diner in a restaurant, coworker, or a passenger on a plane when forced to share their space with a service animal based upon a perceived entitlement by the owner, often endorsed by a letter from a clinician.

Pet owners can attest to the value of their pets in their life. But this medicalization of companion animals, commonly known as pets, that provide comfort and security to mentally ill and nonafflicted individuals alike must be challenged in both the courts of common sense and the judiciary.

Psychiatrists ought to neither aid nor endorse this sloppy widening of the definition of therapy and a resulting denigration of our profession, when animals increasingly intrude on the public sphere disguised as a medical intervention. Reasonable accommodation required by the Americans With Disabilities Act has been carefully spelled out in the regulations and clarified in numerous court cases. The subjective benefit of an animal to the individual must be carefully titrated against public policy and the rights of others. To date, my sense is that the advocates for expanding definitions of service animals and public access are strident in their views and largely unchallenged clinically or in the public arena. It is hoped that this will not continue and that we will see a reasoned debate in the profession and the public.