Service Dog/Classifications of dogs

Therapy dogs are generally conceived to be roughly equivalent to emotional support animals for third party beneficiaries. In other words, the mere presence of the animal helps heal the handler, or some other person, without involving any particular trained behaviours.

This is not, however, to be confused with therapeutic benefit from aservice animal, which uses trained service dog tasks to benefit a person with a disability.

An additional distinctions is that the beneficiary of a service dog must be disabled in one or more major life activity, whereas a therapy dog may benefit any person, for instances someone experiencing a short term recovery process.

Different rights and perogatives obtain for these different dog classifications.