Service Animal
Service animals are defined as dogs that are 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
www.ada.gov
Students who will be accompanied by a service animal should contact Accessibility Services to alert them of the presence of their service animal on campus. For more information, please refer to the Service Animal Policy, found on the Transylvania University homepage under Campus Policies.
Assistance Animals in Student Housing
An assistance animal is an animal that works, provides assistance, or performs tasks for the benefit of a person with a disability, or that provides emotional support that alleviates one or more identified effects of a person’s disability. An assistance animal is not a pet.
www.hud.gov
According to the Fair Housing Act (FHA), individuals with a disability may request to keep an assistance animal as a reasonable accommodation to a housing provider’s pet restrictions. This includes Emotional Support Animals (ESA) that have been prescribed by a licensed healthcare professional to help cope with a disability and to alleviate one or more identified effects of the person’s disability. The documentation must demonstrate the nexus between the person’s condition and the support being provided by the animal. The ESA Form may be used for this purpose, but other legitimate documentation will be accepted as long as it provides all necessary information to make an informed decision. Students interested in requesting this accommodation should follow the guidelines as outlined in the Assistance Animals Policy.
Please note that an unapproved animal brought to campus will be subject to immediate removal and the student may face fines and student conduct charges.