Question
 

So there is NO registration for ESA? or service dogs? All I need is a letter from my therapist? Reason I ask is I have bipolar and anxiety disorder. I am new here and getting a yorkie poo this weekend. Dogs help me calm down.
I will ask my therapist if she will do it if that is all I need.
Thanks!

Correct, there is NO official registration needed for either Service Dogs or ES dogs. It sounds like you do not need a SD, you need an Emotional Support dog. ESDs are not necessarily allowed everywhere a SD is, just so you know. You don't need a letter from your therapist unless you are flying -- if you ARE flying, you can bring your ESD on board without a crate -- however you DO need a letter and I believe it has to be from a psychiatrist (an M.D.), not a therapist.

I thought you had to apply to your city and your dog has to go through training to become a service dog. At least that's what you have to do here where I am

I will shortly be enrolling Gizmo in classes for training as a service dog. I am paralyzed from my rib cage to my knees, with no bodily functions within that area. The first 2 years after my spinal cord injury, I wanted to die. So he would be an emotional support dog for my depression, but a service dog because he helps me in the fact that he makes me have to walk every day. I have what is called cauda equina syndrome, and some days looking At me, you would not be able to tell he's actually providing a service to me by getting me to do the physical therapy of walking so I don't lose that function. I would hate to be judged by how I look, because if that were to happen, the person judging me would have no idea how disabled I am, and how wrong they are to judge. I fully do not agree with buying false credentials, and agree that it ruins it for us that are truly disabled.

But, you really cannot tell if someone is disabled just by looking at them, trust me on this. The worst comment I get from people when they find out I am disabled is "well at least you can still walk" , because the fact is one day I will lose that use as my paralysis progresses, and another is I would cut off both of my legs in a heartbeat to have my bodily functions back, and to actually even just feel when I sit down. I learned when my nerves were severed during spinal cord surgery and I lost all the functions of my body from my knees to my ribs, never to judge a book by its cover. Sometimes a certain task it not fully apparent just by looking at somebody who is disabled. Is Gizmo opening my door? No, is he picking things up for me ? No, is he turning on and off lights? No. But what he is doing is keeping me walking for as long as I can, because I'm already having days where it's hard, that's why I fell a couple months ago, broke one hand, had stitches from a glass breaking and going through the other, and 2 severely bruised knees for several months. E is and eventually will be trained and certified as a service dog, even though some may not know what his service is by looking.

I am so incredibly sorry for your condition! It must be so difficult, I can't imagine. :(

But, remember that a dog MUST be task-trained to be legally considered a service dog. Comfort/being near him is not enough. Also, the tasks have to mitigate your disability. I know someone online who is deaf and her dog would turn her ears one direction, and she would look behind her to see if what she heard was relevant to her.

However this is considered a "passive" behavior of dogs, much like cuddling, affection, etc, are. So it's not an qualifying task for Service Dog work. A qualifying task would be more like if she heard something, and physically alerted her owner to the source of the noise. Sometimes that is used for things like alerting to sirens and so on.

It is important to be aware of what is a qualifying task and what is not. Anything your dog can do with none, or basic training is typically not qualifying.

It sounds like, as of now, you're leaning more towards having Gizmo has an ESA.

I am sorry. I am disabled and on disability and people look at me and would think why but it's because of anxiety, panic attacks and depression. It's hard when people judge just by looking or even harder when they are the kind of people who don't understand or think anxiety and stuff is not real and just something you can snap out of.

This is totally not correct. As I said in my post, he does not do tasks at this time that you can see, but walking is a very important thing to keep, so yes he is doing a service even now, without training as he is being used for physical therapy for me, I have five plates and 14 screws in my back and had major damage done during a spinal cord surgery that went wrong and all my nerves were severed. I can assure you paraplegia is cause for a service dog certification, but what I was los saying is I guess the emotional part is kind of a bonus for me mentally. What I also said was that he will go through service dog training in the future, such as how to alert in an emergency. I merely said he does not do these things now, as he's only 8 months old and in my area needs to be 1 yr to be trained of any alerts. So no it is not emotional when you have to use catheters to empty your bladder or manually empty your bowels, have a stomach that does not digest food, and foot drop that makes it literally like you do not have a leg to stand on in a heartbeat (which is what caused my fall). These are physical disabilities, not emotional.

Here is the symptoms of my paralysis :

PARAPLEGIA BY CES-patients have the following symptoms, in various degrees:
Lower backpain.
Pain in the legs or pain radiating from the lower back to the legs.
Bladder problems (urinary incontinence, difficulty urinating).
Bowel problems (faecal incontinence as a result of low sphincter tone, obstipation caused by slow bowelmovement).
Motor deficit (muscle weakness) or paralysis of legs and/or feet; a typical symptom is the so called "drop foot", which is caused by weakness or paralysis of the muscles that have to lift the foot and toes; in the long run, the sagging of the foot-arch causes pain in bones and joints in the foot.
Sensory deviations (numbness / loss of sensation (anaesthesia) or altered sensation (paraesthesia)) of the skin in the "saddle area" (bottom, hips, inner thighs) and/or in the legs and/or feet; numb areas can show damage of the skin.
Sensory deviations in the perineal area, with sexual dysfunction as a result (not being able to have an erection / orgasm).
The cauda equina syndrome is only visible for the outside world where the motory deficit in legs and feet is concerned. Some CES patients can walk limited distances independently, others use crutches or a cane, and in the worst cases a wheelchair remains necessary. But the other - not clearly visible - symptoms can give as much trouble in every day life.

This is definitely not symptoms for an emotional support dog, but an actual trained service dog.

Sorry to sound abrupt, but its already hard to live this way, with people thinking a paraplegic is an emotional thing. I'm not meaning to offend anyone, but this is exactly the type of comment, as bad as the one I listed in my previous post that makes me wish more people were more informed before making comments.

I also just want to add that as my situation progresses, and it will, he will absolutely be trained for what ever comes next.

:thumbup::thumbup:

Oh, I didn't want you to take my post the wrong way. Paraplegia is ABSOLUTELY a cause for a service dog- I simply meant that a service dog MUST be task trained, even if it's only one task. From the way you described in your post, it sounded like he was being more used for emotional reasons, not your physical ones (which I know you have). But I also did not realize he was so young.

I have a few friends with SD's and have learned a lot and just wanted to share my knowledge, as I know it can be very confusing for folks to differentiate the two. I would NEVER think paraplegic is simply an emotional thing, not one bit and that's definitely not what I was trying to imply. I simply cannot even fathom. I would never in a million yrs think to judge someone with a service dog, I know the pain people go through, and it often is not visible on the outside. I myself suffer from certain anxieties that I don't discuss a lot (but still nothing compared to what you must go through), and having Jackson with me greatly improves this. I certainly understand the benefit of a dog for those who truly need it and appreciate a service dog like none other.

My only point was that legally, a service dog must be trained to a TASK. A task is a trained behavior that mitigates a person's disability by doing something the partner cannot do for themselves, but must be able to do in order to live. Even if you could benefit from a trained behavior, if you could do it for yourself, then it would not qualify as a task for your specific disability. A wheelchair might be a help to a person experiencing stiffness from arthritis, but if they are capable of walking on their own, then a wheelchair isn't really needed. Similarly, a dog trained to remind a handler to take medication, though helpful, would not truly be needed if the person was able to remind themselves to take their medication in ordinary ways, such as using an alarm.

Example: Chris has a hearing disability and can't hear sounds such as a smoke alarms, doorbells, sirens, or her name being called. Chris is otherwise able to function with no other assistance. Chris has a dog named Dusty. If Dusty is trained to let Chris know when a sound occurs (e.g., smoke alarm, doorbell), Dusty is considered a service dog. On the other hand, if Dusty is only trained to retrieve items around the house and does not know how to alert Chris to sounds, Dusty is not considered a service dog for Chris, because the task of retrieving is not directly related to Chris' disability.

Here is the rest of the info: What tasks do psychiatric service dogs perform? | Service Dog Central

The terminology used to label specific types of work dogs perform for people with disabilities has not been standardized. For example, a dog trained to help a person walk might be referred to by different sources as a 'mobility dog', a 'walker dog', or a 'support dog'. Most dogs being used to aid in walking, would be larger, simply due to the safety issues.

Just general info, for anyone else reading this thread:

An individual from any breed can be a service dog but most yorkies wouldn't be able to be a guide dog or a mobility dog but could be an alert dog or possibly a PSD etc.

To have a service dog, three things must be true:

1) The handler MUST be disabled per the ADA. This means that they must have a physical, medical or psychiatric condition that significantly negatively impacts one or more major life activity such as walking, thinking, learning, caring for oneself, etc...

2) The dog must be trained to mitigate the handlers disability. This means that the dog must do something that the handler can not do for themselves due to their disability. Providing comfort or making one feel better just by being there does not count.

3) The dog must be trained to behave properly in public. A very small percentage of dogs have the proper temperament for service dog work. They must be able to ignore sudden, loud noises without reacting, ignore people trying to get their attention, ignore food, not sniff shelves, not seek attention, stay focused on the handler at all times.

It takes 18 mo - 2 years to train a service dog. While not legally required, if you don't know what you are doing, you need to hire a trainer to be successful.

So $150 isn't going to get you a service dog. ;)

I know there is someone here on YT that has a dog that alerts when her glucose is low. I love that ability & I think that her dog is performing a specific task as a service dog, even if he/she started doing it all on it's own. That could mean the difference in a brittle diabetic being able to live alone as opposed to having to always have someone around.
I met a kiddo recently who was a quadraplegic-limited use of arms, none of legs. He was a big kid-like 200 lbs. His service dog was 1/2 lab, 1/2 Great Dane because his mom told me that he had to have a dog big enough to pull him up when he fell out of his wheelchair.
I love the idea of service dogs/alert dogs as well as emotional support dogs & I think it is a crying shame that people get a "certification" just so they can take their dog everywhere. Like someone else said, I have carried Huey into a bunch of places that are not "dog friendly" and have not been kicked out yet!

Awesome!! Yep that is absolutely a service dog that alerts to that. Which posted is this?? That is so cool.

Have you seen the dog JJ with the little girl KK?? He is a terrier mix of sorts. But wonderful story.

http://abcnews.go.com/m/story?id=21279329

Love the news article. How cool is that? Once again, a dog that allows it's owner/charge to live normally when that would otherwise be a complete impossibility.
Found it! http://www.yorkietalk.com/forums/gen...amazes-me.html