If you’re one of the 500,000 people with a service dog wondering if you should get a service animal certification for them, you’re in the right place. While it’s not a legal requirement, it does come with a host of benefits.
We’ve listed some of the top ways registering your service animal can help you and your animal. Read along to find out!
Service Animal Certification Offers Proof
Registering your animal gives you valid documentation that it is, in fact, a service animal. Some places, like restaurants or other businesses, may try to put up a fight when you first walk in with your service animal.
Having your certification helps you to avoid unnecessary conflict. You’re not legally required to prove your disability or disease to anyone. However, they can ask you what your service animal does for you.
This isn’t the case for emotional service animals. While you can go through ESA registration to acquire an ESA dog or other animal, they don’t have the same allowances that registered service animals do.
You still need certain requirements to be approved for an ESA. One of the requirements is seeing a therapist.
Helps with Travel
Even if your animal weren’t a service animal, you would still have certain hoops to jump through to travel through the airport. They need to be up to date on vaccinations with proof.
Because many people are registering their pets as ESA’s, some airlines and other places are cracking down on their rules. Having your service animal certification will, again, take away any anxiety of confrontation about your service dog.
It’s important to check with the specific airline you’re hoping to travel with. The regulations and expectations vary from airline to airline.
Bypasses Animal Housing Restrictions
Many landlords have restrictions and fees for animals. However, you can’t legally be charged for your service animal, and they can’t deny you residence for them! Having this documentation gives you another leg to stand on when trying to find a place to live. They more likely than not will try to push back because they want to charge you for your “pet.”
If you have a service dog, your service dog registration allows you to live anywhere you’d like without fear. It helps prove your service animal’s purpose if your landlord is trying to get around the law.
Identify Your Dog For Strangers
You know that your service animal is there to identify when there is a problem or to help you in daily life. However, some people see a furry friend and want to pet or play with it, especially children.
Having the appropriate certification, along with an identifying vest, alerts everyone around you that your service animal is on assignment. Your dog should be well-trained to know how to handle those situations, but it still lessens the possibility of people interfering in your dog’s job.
Find out how long it takes to train a service dog here.
Final Thoughts
Service animal certification helps lessen any anxiety about taking your service animal out in public with you. That’s one less thing you have to worry about! Service dog registration is not a requirement, but it does give you a better leg to stand on. For more information like this, keep reading in our pets section.
