Public Access Definitions:
The Following Are Allowed Full Public Access Under the ADA:
 

• Assistance and Service dogs -
  A service animal is a dog that is individually trained to do work or perform tasks for a person with a disability.  
  
  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.
   

• Psychiatric Service Dog -
  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.
   

The Following Are NOT Granted Full Public Access Under the ADA:
 

• Emotional support animals, comfort animals -  
  These support animals provide companionship, relieve loneliness, and sometimes help with depression, anxiety, and certain phobias, but do not have special training to perform tasks that assist people with disabilities.
  
  These are not service animals under Title II and Title III of the ADA. Other species of animals, whether wild or domestic, trained or untrained, are not considered service animals either. The work or tasks performed by a service animal must be directly related to the individual’s disability. It does not matter if a person has a note from a doctor that states that the person has a disability and needs to have the animal for emotional support.  A doctor’s letter does not turn an animal into a service animal.
   

• Animal Assisted Therapy / Pet therapy dogs - 
  Therapy animals provide people with therapeutic contact, usually in a clinical setting, to improve their physical, social, emotional, and/or cognitive functioning.
  
  These animals accompany their able-bodied handlers to visit patients in hospitals, hospice care, nursing homes and other facilities.  They do not have public access and are not service animals.