The Service Dog Dilemma
I wanted to share with you a situation that recently came up with one of our rentals regarding service dogs. Please note we are located in Pennsylvania, though this issue is at a federal level.
The Situation: Our tenants approached us about potentially getting a puppy and training it to be a service dog for them. They had explained that one member of the family had a diagnosed condition which would benefit from a service dog (sorry to be vague, but I'm not sure if saying the actual diagnosis is illegal). We do not currently restrict pets at this location, though we do require more information, a pet addenda and associated fees, etc. so we were up for discussing once they were more serious about getting a dog and its breed, age, etc. Long story short, we found out about the actual puppy within two hours of its delivery to their new owners (our tenants). SO the situation - we now had a puppy in a rental of ours with no written approval to be there and the disagreement that this puppy (7 weeks old) was designated a service dog. We, as landlords said no, its not a service dog. The tenants, naturally disagreed. Please understand too that we have no issue with a service dog or our tenants having one, we were just concerned that they would have every intention of training this dog, but then grow slack on its training and ending up with just a pet, and for free, no less, in our home and causing potential damage. So, we began to research.
The Research: Oh, the internet. We found many, many articles discussing this issue, training websites selling their certificates and people sharing their stories. What we couldn't find were the actual laws and definitions in the law pertaining to our direct issue of this puppy, who currently has no other training, is seen as a service dog in the eyes of the law. Through some serious digging, and calling several governmental departments (all of which were as confused as we were) here's what we found.
1) The Department of Agriculture (PA) turns out they're the ones who enforce laws in and around service animals (news to us!). Unable to get anyone on the phone, we went digging on their website and found a PDF specifically talking about service animals (Link Here). This article mostly spoke about non-discrimination and service dogs in businesses. While helpful, it wasn't exactly what we were looking for. What DID help were the sources listed and their referral to our next source.
2) The ADA.gov (Americans with Disabilities Act) is a part of the United States Justice Department and defines the standards in the country with regards to those with disabilities. On this website, we were able to find a document that actually define and elaborate on what a Service Dog is defined as. In this document (Link Here) it states that "Service animals are defined as dogs that are individually trained to do work or perform tasks for people with disabilities. Examples of such work or tasks include guiding people who are blind, alerting people who are deaf, pulling a wheelchair, alerting and protecting a person who is having a seizure, reminding a person with mental illness to take prescribed medications, calming a person with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) during an anxiety attack, or performing other duties. Service animals are working animals, not pets. The work or task a dog has been trained to provide must be directly related to the person’s disability. Dogs whose sole function is to provide comfort or emotional support do not qualify as service animals under the ADA."
The Conclusion: Because we were able to find that document and review the definition of a service dog, we were able to show the tenants that because their puppy was not yet trained to "provide a task directly related to the person's disability" the dog was still a pet, not a service dog. We agreed that once their dog was trained, they just needed to submit proof to us from their doctor that the dog, in fact, has underwent and completed training specifically related to our tenants disability. Once submitted, we would forego the pet fee.
Has anyone else gone through anything like this? I would love to hear feedback on what you have done when it comes to service animals.