Service Dog Vs Therapy Dog Vs Emotional Support Dog. An emotional support animal differs from a service animal. Although it’s easy to assume that service dogs, emotional support animals and therapy dogs all provide the same type of aid for their caretakers, their training, responsibilities and access to public spaces differ greatly.
An emotional support animal (esa) provide their owners with therapeutic benefits through companionship. While it may seem that the terms emotional support animal, therapy dog, and service dog are interchangeable, make no mistake, these dogs have very different training and certification requirements, legal accessibility rights, and jobs they perform. Although it’s easy to assume that service dogs, emotional support animals and therapy dogs all provide the same type of aid for their caretakers, their training, responsibilities and access to public spaces differ greatly.
I wanted to take a few minutes to share the differences between a service dog, emotional support dog and a therapy dog.
Often, when people are first looking into a service dog, they will use the wrong words for talking about what they’re looking for. The differences matter this september, we released our biggest update to the dictionary ever. Although it’s easy to assume that service dogs, emotional support animals and therapy dogs all provide the same type of aid for their caretakers, their training, responsibilities and access to public spaces differ greatly. Each of these dogs has a very different job from the others and the terms are not interchangeable.