Emotional Support Animals vs Service Animals

According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Emotional Support Animals (ESAs) are a type of assistance animal that provides emotional support alleviating one or more symptoms of a person's disability.

To be considered a service animal under the ADA, an animal must be either a dog. This is one big distinction between service animals and emotional support animals: While only those two species can be service animals, emotional support animals can be any type of animal.

A service animal must do one or more specific job for their handler, aka the person with a disability whom they assist.

 Examples include:

• Guiding people who are blind
• Alerting people who are deaf
• Pulling a wheelchair
• Alerting and protecting a person who is having a seizure
• Reminding a person with mental illness to take prescribed medications
• Calming a person with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) during an anxiety attack

• Service dogs and emotional support animals (ESAs) have different rights under the law.
• Service dogs perform specific tasks to assist people with disabilities. ESAs provide comfort to people with disabilities mainly through their calming presence.
• By law, service dogs must be allowed in public places. Public establishments have the right to deny entry to ESAs.
• In light of new travel rules, most airlines offer special accommodations to trained service dogs only. ESAs and service dogs in training must adhere to an airline’s general pet policy.