Therapy Animal

Definition

A therapy animal is a pet, typically a dog, trained to interact with many people other than its handler to make those people feel better.

Therapy animals are trained to behave safely around a diverse range of people.

Allowed Locations

A therapy dog handler is not given public access rights by any service dog laws to take the dog out everywhere like service dog users because the handler does not have a disability that the dog is individually trained to mitigate.

Therapy dogs are only allowed in places like hospitals and skilled nursing facilities, though this is not an exhaustive list.

Student Disability Resources is not generally involved in situations involving therapy animals.