Understanding Service Animals
February 27, 2019 Greg Thomson
Under the Customer Service Standard of the AODA, service providers’ policies must state that they welcome service animals. The Standard discusses how service providers must allow service animals in almost all public places. It also outlines what providers must do to accommodate customers who need to go to places where their service animals are excluded by law. However, service providers committed to obeying these laws may still have many questions about service animals, such as what they do and how to behave around them. Here we offer some best practices for understanding service animals that service providers should follow.
Understanding Service Animals
What do service animals do?
Providers know that service animals help their handlers maintain their independence, but might still wonder what, exactly, service animals do. Service animals help people with disabilities or conditions such as:
- Visual impairments
- Diabetes
- Epilepsy
- Autism
- Hearing disabilities
- physical disabilities
Moreover, they perform tasks, such as:
- Guiding a person around obstacles
- Alerting a person about low blood sugar levels
- Protecting a person during seizures
- Calming a person in an environment with too much sensory stimulation and preventing behavioural outbursts
- Retrieving out-of-reach objects
- Alerting a person to sounds
Furthermore, service animals assist their handlers everywhere in their communities, including places and events such as:
- Stores
- Restaurants
- Buses, taxis, trains, [...]