Animals in the Library
Quick Takeaways
- We are required to allow service animals in the Library, but we do not have to allow “support” or “therapy” animals.
- We need to be precise in the way we ask questions about the service/support animal and the person’s disability.
- We can exclude a disruptive animal, but we should always offer alternate means to serve the patron if the animal must leave the Library.
Service Animals
Service animals are defined under federal law as:
“…dogs that are individually trained to do work or perform tasks for people with disabilities. Examples of such work or tasks 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, or performing other duties. Service animals are working animals, not pets. The work or task a dog has been trained to provide must be directly related to the person’s disability. Dogs whose sole function is to provide comfort or emotional support do not qualify as service animals under the ADA.”
When trying to determine whether an animal qualifies under the ADA as a service animal, it is important that you limit yourself to two, specifically-worded questions:
- Is the dog a service animal required because of a disability?
- What work or task has the dog been trained to perform?
You cannot ask about the person’s disability, require medical documentation, require a special identification card or training documentation for the dog, or ask that the dog demonstrate its ability to perform the work or task.
Library staff may exclude a service animal if it presents a direct threat to the safety of others, if it is disruptive and the owner cannot/will not control it, or if it is not housebroken.
Support Animals
“Support” (or “comfort” or “therapy”) animals provide companionship to an individual that is intended to be beneficial (supportive, comforting); they are not trained to perform specific work or tasks for the person with a disability.
Understanding the difference between service and support
A service animal falls under the Americans with Disabilities Act and is usually a dog that is trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of an individual with a physical, sensory, psychiatric or intellectual disability. Emotional support animals are not trained in specific tasks and are not recognized under the ADA. Although emotional support animals are allowed in campus housing, they may not necessarily be allowed in classrooms or elsewhere on campus.
[Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, Disability Rights Section, ADA Requirements: Service Animals (https://www.ada.gov/service_animals_2010.htm)]
[Source: Roles of Emotional Support Animals Examined, American Psychological Association, https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2018/08/emotional-support-animals.aspx]
Wentworth Institute of Technology