Yes, people have fake service dogs in order to just bring their dog places. Yes, people have emotional support animals as an excuse to bring their pet. However, not every psychiatric service dog or emotional support animal is fake & it’s not your job to determine why they have it

Illness is not just physical nor are disabilities. I’m going to talk about different needs for emotional support dogs and psychiatric service dogs to help educate (both are different things. One is a service dog and one isn’t)

why people have emotional support dogs:

- anxiety

- depression

- bipolar disorder

- mood disorders

- panic attacks

- PTSD

emotional support dogs can bring comfort to their owner and help them. They’re not a service dog so you can only bring them on an airplane but if you suffer from a mental illness and they truly comfort you - THAT IS VALID. IT’S NOT “fake” and NO ONE should get to determine what’s

best for you

reasons for a psychiatric service dog:

- psychiatric disability

- mental disorder (ocd, ptsd, anxiety, etc.)

These ARE service dogs and are trained to help their owners do daily things! JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN’T SEE A DISABILITY OR ILLNESS DOESN’T MEAN THEY DON’T HAVE ONE

psychiatric service dogs can..

- interrupt repetitive behaviors due to OCD

- alleviate fear and hyper vigilance from PTSD

- attends to their emotional distress

- create a safe space for the owner by creating space away from a crowd

- fetch medication

psychiatric service dogs are valid and emotional support animals are valid as long as you don’t abuse the guidelines set for each of them (one is a service dog and one is not)

there are a lot of fake service dogs and emotional support animals but that doesn’t mean EVERY single one is. Just because it’s not physically obvious doesn’t mean it’s fake.

thank you for coming to my mental health ted talk