Beyond Companionship

From peacocks to pot bellied pigs, emotional support animals have made headlines around the world in recent years for all the wrong reasons.

And while the designation has become somewhat relegated to a joke, for Christy Rahnert of Centralia, her Pekingese rat terrier mix, Luci, is anything but a joke. Living with depression, anxiety and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Rahnert said her emotional support dog is a lifeline that allows her to live a normal life.

“Luci gets my butt out of bed most days,” Rahnert said. “I have to get up. There’s no excuse. I can’t just stay in bed all day.”

Luci accompanies Rahnert almost everywhere. She has ridden the bus, helped out at The Gather and even goes shopping with her. Rahnert said one of the only places she’s never taken Luci is the hospital “because she’s a hairy little animal.” In most cases, people are very welcoming, but even so Rahnert carries a letter from her counselor documenting her diagnosis and recommending her use of an emotional support animal.

“As long as she has her letter, she’s fine,” Rahnert said. “People ask about her and I show them the papers and it’s fine.”

A new Washington state law that went into effect Jan. 1 aims to change the way we understand and treat service animals and emotional support animals. It limits the definition of service animals to dogs and miniature horses only that are individually trained to do work or perform tasks directly related to their owner’s disability. It also imposes a $500 fine for those misrepresenting a pet as a service animal.

For trainers, the issue of service animals, therapy animals and emotional support animals is often a confusing issue, forcing them to try to distinguish people with legitimate needs from those who are seeking these distinctions for animals for other reasons. Scott Heywood, who owns and operates Centralia Pet Resort with his wife, Gail, said the term emotional support animal seems to be used too often by people who simply want to bring their animal along with them, rather than people who are working with a counselor, doctor or trainer to meet a specific need. 

“I support the validity of an emotional support dog,” Heywood said. “If people hadn’t screwed it up, I’d bet you they would still be called guide dogs.”

Sara Gingerich, owner of Three Dog Night in downtown Centralia and a professional dog trainer since 2011, said first and foremost the terms used to classify these animals are often misused or mistaken. Service animals are those that have been trained to provide a specific service to someone based on a documented mental or physical need. Service animals are the only classification with all-access rights under the Americans With Disabilities Act. There are also therapy animals, emotional support animals and companion animals, but each of these classifications have different access rights compared to service animals. 

According to the ADA, if a business, provider or employer has a question about an animal, they are legally allowed to ask “Is this a service dog?” and “What tasks is it trained to perform?” Further questioning or demands to see the dog perform an action are not allowed. If the dog is aggressive or makes a mess, business owners have the right to ask the handler to remove the animal but must welcome the owner back to the business without the animal.

Heywood said the first and best resource for information on laws and regulations regarding service animals is always the Americans With Disabilities Act. He also noted that reputable trainers are not interested in making money off the issue of service dogs. Rather, the right trainer will refer the owner to the ADA

rules and will be interested in helping the owner train their dog to be safe, well socialized and to perform specific tasks.

“The quickest way to turn me and Gail off is to say ‘I want to get that vest so I can take my dog everywhere,’” Heywood said. “In those cases, we say ‘no thank you. Bye bye.’”

Gingerich said service dogs account for about 3 percent of her training clients, but she said she does occasionally get requests she simply has to turn down. It has become a passion of hers to help disseminate correct information about service dogs, including the fact that misrepresenting your animal as one of them can land you in hot water.

“I’ve had people who just blatantly ask me ‘how do I get my dog trained as a service dog because my landlord will not let me keep him?’” Gingerich said. “I tell them, ‘by doing that, you are essentially committing fraud.’”

Misinformation about these animal classifications is sometimes spread through websites, both trainers noted. They both mentioned there are online resources that sell things like vests that say “service animal,” sometimes including paperwork that “certifies” the animal as a service animal. There is no actual certification for either service animal or emotional support animal status, so these items are fraudulent.

“The ADA says if someone is selling you a packet of information, selling you a certification for an emotional support animal, it’s fraud,” Gingerich said. “There’s nothing in existence.”

The Heywoods have a combined 70 years of dog training and Scott previously worked as part of the training staff for Leader Dogs for the Blind in Rochester, Michigan, working with more than 500 blind students during his time there. He said people often do not even understand the difference between having a dog simply trained for good behavior and trained for task specific service. He explained that organizations such as Leader Dogs for the Blind start training puppies at about 18 months old and do not match them with someone in need of a guide dog until they have been trained in basic behavior. He said he often gets requests from people who want to get their current pet trained as a service dog but he recommends against it because the emotional attachment between owner and pet is often an obstacle to getting the animal to perform the tasks it needs to.

“I don’t just hand you a dog that can do a job, I hand you a dog that matches you,” Heywood said. “That dog will have often put in two years of training before you actually meet them.”

Gingerich noted that the new Washington law is more focused on protecting those who need the services these animals provide them than identifying those who misuse the system. Unfortunately, she has had clients harassed because well-meaning people who thought they were busting imposters. She noted that service dogs are trained to help people with anxiety, PTSD, seizure disorder, depression and many other ailments that may not be easy to spot.

“I don’t want people to assume a disability has to be seen,” Gingerich said. “In general, I’d say assume that person is fine.”

While the law is more restrictive of emotional support animals such as Luci, it is hoped that the new law will also help people like Rahnert who have a legitimate need for an emotional support animal delineate themselves from the scores of people who attempt to pass off their pets as medically necessary. For Rahnert, her emotional support dog has been a saving grace for her that she hopes to pass on to others. She hopes in the near future to breed Luci and donate the puppies to others who may need an emotional support animal but who cannot afford to purchase an animal.

“A lot of people don’t have a lot of money, especially in Lewis County, but a lot of people need an animal like this to get love and give love,” she said.