Service Dogs vs. Therapy Dogs

    In a previous blog about therapy dogs and children, I used the terms "therapy dog" and "service dog" interchangeably, unaware that they are not the same thing. I found an article online titled, Service Animal Basics", created by Petpartners.org. The article has lots of information about how dogs or even miniature horses can be service animals. It lists services that the animals can provide, requirements and standards, and how to become a service animal. But the part that I was most interested in was a section where the article differentiates between the legal definitions of Service, Therapy, Companion, and Social animals. According to the ADA, service animals are legally defined and are highly training to perform disability related tasks for their owners who require the animal for some purpose. The animals are not pets. However, therapy animals, are not legally defined. They allow people to have contact with animals but they are not strictly for people with disabilities like a service animal would be. A therapy dog can also be classified as a service dog if it has the proper training, but service dogs that are strictly for people with disabilities cannot be classified as therapy dogs. Both types of dogs are very beneficial to their owners, however they just provide different types of services. Since many people don’t recognize the difference between the two at first, I felt like this cleared up some things and is good information so that we are aware of what we are referring to when we say "service dogs" in our documentary.