Service Animals

The growing acknowledgment that service animals can be an essential support to some individuals with disabilities has been formalized in new U.S. Department of Justice regulations. Support might include pulling a wheelchair, guiding a person who is blind, alerting a person who is deaf, 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), or performing other essential duties.

Under federal law, state and local governments, businesses, and nonprofit organizations that serve the public generally must allow service animals to accompany people with disabilities wherever the public is normally permitted. And students are entitled to bring service animals to school if their presence is necessary to the provision of a free and appropriate public education.