Only the US government can come up with such a poster:

http://www.ada.gov/service_animals_2010.htm

If you read the poster carefully, it says 1) the animal must be individually trained; 2) PTSD is a recognized disability; but 3) the purpose of the animal cannot be just to calm and/or simply providing emotional support is insufficient.

Many smaller dogs and cats already have been bred to sit and be petted–and that’s all they want to do all day long.  The only training they would need to be a therapy animal would be to ignore everything around them, which is often what these animals naturally do–especially when comfortable in a lap and being petted.

If PTSD or LAS (Legal Abuse Syndrome) can cause anxiety and emotional outbursts and a therapy animal simply being present or being petted quells the condition, then that should be part of the ADA.

Stress is extremely taxing and detrimental to the health of the human body.  People have died of anxiety attacks or they have provoked seriously and deadly diseases within a short period of time in a normally healthy human being.

When a body is stressed, temperature can wildly fluctuate, heart, lungs and all internal organs go into “fight or flight” mode–which is seriously abnormal and can lead to severe and/or permanent damage.  Adrenalin and other stress

I have therefore no idea why a therapy animal for PTSD or LAS or PTLD cannot just simply “be there”.  I assume the disabled person must, when stressed, then pet the dog or cat to stop the anxiety attack or emotional outburst.  Is being petted a job or task that the dog is trained to do?

Anyway, if it takes this much analysis to figure out what the ADA means, and the poster isn’t clear, that’s a huge issue in and of itself, since the statute is supposed to be remedial in nature and to be interpreted broadly.

We have seen what happens when the ARDC interprets the statute narrowly.

JoAnne