UTMB follows the
provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act as Amended (ADAAA)
regarding the appropriate use of service animals at our facilities.
A service animal is defined by the ADA as any breed and size of dog that is individually trained to do work or perform tasks for a person with disabilities.
Some common tasks include:
Guiding a person who is blind or has low vision
Alerting a person to a sound
Pulling a wheelchair
Alerting and protecting a person who is having a seizure
Reminding a person to take medication
Calming a person during an anxiety attack
Retrieving dropped items, pressing elevator buttons, etc.
The
work or tasks a service animal has been trained to provide must be
directly related to the person’s disability. A dog whose sole function
is to provide comfort or emotional support does not qualify as
a service animal under the ADA.
A service animal is not required
to be certified or go through a professional training program and does
not have to wear a vest or other type of identification.
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As a reminder, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) just covers the
United States. There are different accessibility acts in other
countries and terminology can differ. In the US, Service Animals
are trained to do work or tasks for people with disabilities. In the
UK, the corresponding concept is an Assistance Dog, and a Service Dog is
what we would consider a K-9 dog, trained for fire, police or other
public service agencies.
Under Title I of the ADA service animals are considered a reasonable accommodation. An employee
must request that the service animal be present as an accommodation for their disability. Under Title II and III of the ADA, only dogs are considered service animals. However, under Title I, in the workplace, there is no such definition and
technically no limit to what type of animal can be a reasonable accommodation. This means that accommodating an emotional support animal may be an appropriate reasonable accommodation.