Service Animals

Service animals are animals that have been trained to perform tasks that assist people with disabilities. Service animals may also be referred to as "assistance animals," "assist animals," "support animals," or "helper animals" depending on country.

The international assistance animal community has categorized three types of assistance animals:

Guide animals to guide the blind
Hearing animals to signal the hearing impaired
Service animals to do work for persons with disabilities 
other than blindness or deafness.

In the United States, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) defines a service animal as "any guide dog, signal dog, or other animal individually trained to provide assistance to an individual with a disability.

Despite regulations or rules that deny access to animals in restaurants and other public places, in many countries, guide dogs and other types of assistance dogs are protected by law, and therefore may accompany their handlers most places that are open to the public. Laws and regulations vary worldwide:

In the United States, the Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits any business, government agency, or other organization that provides access to the general public from barring guide dogs. However, religious organizations are not required to provide such access. The Fair Housing Act requires that landlords allow tenants to have guide dogs in residences that normally have a No Pets policy and no extra fees may be charged for such tenants. Whether guide dogs in training have the same rights or not usually falls on each individual state government.

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