On December 2, 2020, the U.S. Department of Transportation announced new rules that give airlines the option to no longer recognize emotional support animals.

These rules went into effect on January 11, 2021. You can click here to read more about which airlines are still accepting emotional support animals and which are not.

Suppose you’re flying on an airline that no longer has an ESA program. The ESA must meet the airline’s requirements for normal pets and a pet fee each way.

Psychiatric Service Animal is like Emotional Support Animals

Psychiatric Service Dogs provide a task or service to an individual with a mental disability.

Here are a few examples of tasks that psychiatric service dogs provide to their handlers:

  • A licking or nose nudging handler for tactile stimulation.
  • Providing deep pressure touch to calm handler.
  • The Interrupting and redirecting handler from self-destructive actions.
  • Psychiatric service dogs also reorienting the handler during an anxiety attack when waking up.
  • Reminding handler to take medication.

Therefore a service dog helps the handle during freezing behaviour; for instance, when he resumes back; in other words, the service dog is there for the handler support.

But, above all, in a dissociative state of fear and a general paralysis state, as a result, keep the patient calm.

Most importantly, psychiatric service dogs in other similar situations keep the patient at ease and calm; for instance, when the handler is out of the frozen state, he usually doesn’t remember anything.