@Rebecca160 Thanks for posting this clarification. There have been many changes in the laws since I began working in the therapy field many moons ago. Currently, the ADA recognizes Psychiatric Service Dogs, which includes dogs that assist people (often Vets) with PTSD; people who experience seizures; etc: "Psychiatric Service Dog is a dog that has been trained to perform tasks that assist individuals with disabilities to detect the onset of psychiatric episodes and lessen their effects. Tasks performed by psychiatric service animals may include reminding the handler to take medicine, providing safety checks or room searches, or turning on lights for persons with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, interrupting self-mutilation by persons with dissociative identity disorders, and keeping disoriented individuals from danger..."
But, it can get very tricky, as exampled below (excerpted from the ada.gov website):
"Q4. If someone's dog calms them when having an anxiety attack, does this qualify it as a service animal?
A. It depends. The ADA makes a distinction between psychiatric service animals and emotional support animals. If the dog has been trained to sense that an anxiety attack is about to happen and take a specific action to help avoid the attack or lessen its impact, that would qualify as a service animal. However, if the dog's mere presence provides comfort, that would not be considered a service animal under the ADA."
With that said, a legitimate Emotional Support Animal (ESA) also might assist individuals with anxiety, depression, PTSD, and other Axis I-type (mental/emotional) disorders. They are 'comfort' animals and not trained to perform a specific task, and so they are not acknowledged as Psychiatric Service Dogs by the ADA and are not protected by ADA laws. I should have made this distinction clear in my original post, and I did not.
Interestingly, many owners of Psychiatric Service Dogs are very unhappy with the abuses currently occurring with fake ESAs. They feel that fake ESAs are de-legitimatizing their own ADA-protected Psychiatric Service dogs and there are activist groups (including Vets with PTSD) who would like to see a major crack-down on fake ESAs for this reason. It will be interesting to see what happens over time.