Animals allowed in our facilities include:
Detection Dogs/ Contract Animals: Specially trained dogs that work using their senses to detect substances or pests.
Service Animal: Defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and its regulations. A service animal is defined as any dog that is 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.
Service animals may also be excluded under the following situations:
a. The animal exhibits aggressive behavior such as snarling, biting, scratching, or teeth baring.
b. The animal is excessively noisy (e.g. barking, howling, crying, or whining).
c. The animal is unable to properly contain bodily excretions.
d. Is visibly unclean or infested.
Therapy Dog: Therapy dogs are trained to provide comfort and affection to people other than their handlers or owners. That could mean visiting a variety of places where people need love and affection, such as hospitals, schools, hospices, nursing homes, disaster areas, and more. They are encouraged to interact with a variety of people and should have a friendly and warm disposition.
Animals not allowed in our facilities:
Emotional Support or Comfort Animal: An animal that provides comfort, companionship, relieve loneliness, and sometimes help with depression, anxiety and certain phobias but do not have special training to perform tasks for people with disabilities. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) provides no protection for emotional support animals in public accommodations, therefore emotional support / comfort animals follow the same protocol as a Personal Pet.
Personal Pet: Animal owned by a patient or patient’s family as an object of affection for personal companionship.