What Does a Psychiatric Service Dog Do?

Service dogs are dogs that are trained to perform tasks that mitigate disabilities for people with serious disabilities. Psychiatric service dogs perform tasks to assist people with psychiatric disabilities, including depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorders, and schizophrenia. I have post-traumatic stress disorder and my service dog Isaac does a number of tasks to help me. The specific tasks a psychiatric service dogs does depend on the needs of the person the dog assists.

Medication Reminders

Psychiatric service dogs often remind people to take their medications. One person I know tends to forget to take his daily medications and so his service reminds him to take his pills every day at sunrise and sunset. I usually remember my own medication, but sometimes when I am having an anxiety attack, I am unable to think clearly and then I forget to take the medicine that will relieve my anxiety. Isaac brings my medicine to me when I begin to have an anxiety attack, which reminds me to take it.

Interrupting Compulsive Behaviors

Psychiatric service dogs can be trained to interrupt compulsive behaviors, like hair pulling (trichotillomania) or picking at the skin (dermatillomania). When I’m feeling very anxious, I tend to pick at my skin, especially picking at scabs. My service dog is trained to nudge my hand away when I start to pick at my skin. He will continue nudging my hand, more and more insistently, until I stop.

Determining if Something is a Hallucination or Real

People with conditions like schizophrenia may have hallucinations. Psychiatric service dogs can be trained to help people determine if something is a hallucination or if it’s real. For instance, dogs can be trained to greet people on command. If someone thinks he sees someone come into the room, he can give his service dog the command to greet the person. If it’s really a hallucination, the dog won’t greet that. Instead, the dog will look a bit confused, and the dog’s owner will know he was hallucinating.

Other Tasks

Psychiatric service dogs can perform many other tasks, depending on the needs of the person with a disability. For instance, my service dog turns on lights for me, because my PTSD causes me to be afraid to walk into a dark room. My service dog is also trained to move in a circle around me to create a bit of a boundary around me if I’m in a crowded place and people are too close to me. I know someone that sometimes has anxiety attacks in public places, like stores, and when that happens, her service dog leads her to the exit so she can calm down outside where it’s not so crowded. These are just a few of the other tasks psychiatric service dogs might be trained to perform.

Emotional Support

Dogs provide emotional support to many people with conditions like depression and anxiety disorders. Simply petting a dog or spending time with a dog can be relaxing and take someone’s mind off his troubles. However, this is not a task that a dog must be trained to do, so psychiatric service dogs must do other things to help people with disabilities. Simply providing emotional support isn’t enough.

Encourage Physical Activity

Dogs also encourage their owners to get more physical activity because dogs need to go for regular walks. For years my doctors and therapists had been encouraging me to get more exercise but I didn’t actually do that until I got my service dog. Isaac loves to go for long walks and now I take him for two or three 20 to 30 minute walks every day. However, taking walks isn’t a task dogs have to be trained to do, so psychiatric service dogs have to do other things to help people with disabilities.

Can You Take a Service Dog to the Hospital with You?

I have a service dog, a yellow lab named Isaac, who is trained to help me with my post-traumatic stress disorder and the herniated disk in my back. Due to my disabilities, I’ve had to spend a fair amount of time in hospitals, both as an inpatient and as an outpatient. When I was preparing to get my service dog, I started researching whether or not I would be able to take him to the hospital with me.

Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, people that rely on service dogs are allowed to take their dogs to most health care facilities, including doctors’ offices and hospitals, as long as the presence of the dog doesn’t cause a “fundamental alteration in the provision of goods or services.” What that means in practice, and in plain English, is that you cannot take a service dog into an area where the presence of the dog would compromise the quality of care given to you or to other patients.

One easy way to think about it with regards to a hospital is to consider in which areas of the hospital people have to wear special clothing. In an operating room or a burn care unit, for instance, staff members all have to wear gowns and gloves and masks and shoe covers and hair covers. However, you cannot dress up a dog like that. The presence of a service dog could cause serious problems and there is really no way around it, no “reasonable accommodation” that could be made in order to allow the dog’s presence.

Plus, if you are having surgery, you are not going to be able to manage your dog and your dog is not likely to be able to do any tasks that help you with anything. Most likely, you’ll be unconscious but even if you are having surgery under local or regional anesthesia and are awake, you’re not going to need your dog to pick up things for you or open doors for you or alert you to sounds or whatever it is your dog usually does for you.

You should, however, be able to take your service dog to the emergency room, to the lab, to the cafeteria, to the gift shop, and to visit patients on most units of the hospital. If you are going to the emergency room because you are sick, though, you might want to bring along a friend that can help with your dog. If you end up being there a long time, your dog may need to go outside and you might not be able to take it for a walk right then. If you have to get x-rays or certain other tests, it may not be safe for your dog to be in the room with you, and hospital staff is not responsible for caring for your dog.

If you need to be admitted to the hospital for some reason, in most cases you should be able to take your service dog with you if you want to, but you should think about it carefully. If you are sick enough to require hospitalization, you are probably too sick to take your dog for walks and to take care of your dog in other ways. You could arrange for a friend or family member to come in several times a day to take your dog for walks, or you could hire a dog walker to do that. Still, your dog is probably going to get bored and unhappy doing nothing but sitting beside your hospital bed for several days. Most people that rely on service dogs choose to leave their dog with a friend or family member when they need to be hospitalized. A family member or friend could bring your dog to visit you while you are in the hospital, however.

Since receiving my service dog, I’ve only been hospitalized once. I elected to have a friend care for my dog during that time because I felt it would be too difficult for me to care for the dog while I was in the hospital. I felt it was important to consider what was best for my dog and spending five days cooped up in a hospital room wouldn’t have been best for him.

And if you're wondering if your service dog is allowed in an ambulance with you, in most cases the answer is yes.  You can read more about that here.

Hiking at Cuyahoga Valley National Park

It was a lovely day, sunny and about 40 degrees.  I decided Isaac and I needed a good long hike.  I had plenty to do at home, cleaning and some fascinating articles about mold that I'm working on, but it was a nice day and we needed a good hike.

Cuyahoga Valley National Park is about 90 minutes from my house, maybe just a little bit more.  We don't go there very often but it offers a lot of nice hiking paths.  There is a nice paved path that runs along the old canal path and I thought that would be good since it's really muddy around here.  Somehow the paved path still managed to be kind of muddy, but it was still a lovely walk.

Isaac found lots of interesting things to sniff.

He was a bit disappointed that he was not allowed to play in the creek but he had fun nonetheless.

The staples come out of his tail Monday and then he will be free to play in creeks all he wants, provided of course it is warm enough.  Of course, they are predicting snow next week.  But at least he will be able to run and play and roll in it.

Saddle Up

I have an elderly neighbor who absolutely adores Isaac. She thinks he is the smartest dog that ever lived and takes every opportunity to tell anyone who will listen about how wonderful he is.

There is a new tenant in our building and yesterday they were both in the lobby as Isaac and I were on our way out. The neighbor that loves Isaac explained to the new neighbor, "You can pet him now but when she puts his saddle on him, you aren't allowed to touch him or talk to him or pet him or nothing."

For some reason, I was moved to sing the theme song from that old television show Mr. Ed to Isaac as we headed to the car.

What Kinds of Animals Can Be Service Animals?

Service animals are animals that assist people with disabilities. The animals are trained to perform tasks that their handlers cannot do for themselves. A service animal allows a person with a serious disability to be more independent and to live a fuller life.

It should be noted that, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, animals that provide comfort or companionship for their owners but that are not trained to perform any specific tasks are not considered service animals under federal law. For instance, a person with depression or an anxiety disorder may have a pet and that pet may help the person relax, but that does not mean the pet is a service animal.

Dogs

The most popular service animal is a dog. Everyone is familiar with the image of a blind person walking down the street with a guide dog, but dogs are used as service animals for people with many other disabilities, as well. Dogs let deaf people know when doorbells ring, when alarms go off and when babies cry. Dogs pick up items for people with physical disabilities, open doors for them and turn on lights. Dogs can be trained to perform services for people with mental disabilities, too.

With the exception of miniature horses in certain cases, dogs are the only service animals recognized under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which gives disabled people that rely on service animals the right to take their dogs with them into most public places, even if pets are typically not allowed there. The reason dogs are preferred as service animals is because it has been proven that they can be trained well enough to do their jobs consistently and safely.

Miniature Horses

Some people advocate the use of miniature horses as an alternative to guide dogs for the blind. Miniature horses live longer than dogs, about 25 to 35 years, according to the Guide Horse Foundation. Since it takes quite a bit of training to prepare a service animal for duty, a longer lifespan is a significant benefit. Miniature horses may also be good service animals for visually impaired people that need help with balance, since the horses are able to bear more weight than dogs.

The National Federation of the Blind discourages the use of guide horses for the blind, however. Horses are more easily startled by loud noises or other unexpected things than dogs, despite extensive training. Miniature horses are too large to travel with their handlers by car or taxi, and they cannot curl up discretely under a chair or table as a service dog does in a restaurant.

Monkeys

Monkeys are sometimes placed in the home as service animals for those with severe physical disabilities, such as people with quadriplegia (paralysis from the neck down). Capuchin monkeys are commonly used, though other types of monkeys are sometimes used, as well. The ADA does not require businesses to allow disabled people with service monkeys to bring their monkeys into public places because monkeys are not domesticated the way dogs are and it is possible for a service monkey to injure someone. It may be more difficult to train monkeys to cope with the noise and commotion in public places, as well.

In the home, however, monkeys can provide many services other animals, including dogs, could not provide. They can open drinks, hold drinks for their handlers to sip, put CD’s on the stereo or DVD’s in the DVD player, scratch itchy noses, adjust blankets and pillows, and perform other tasks requiring manual dexterity. Of course, they provide companionship, as well.

Other Animals

While federal law does not allow people with disabilities to take other types of animals into public places that typically ban pets, people have claimed that they use numerous other species of animals as service animals and expressed outrage when told they could not bring their animals into public places like restaurants. Unusual animals claimed to be service animals have included snakes, parrots, goats, pigs, cats, hedgehogs, ferrets and rats. These animals cannot be adequately trained to behave appropriately in a public setting and in some cases pose risks to the public. Of course, they are also very limited in the tasks they can perform.