Animal Assisted Therapy & Education
DoveLewis is steadfastly committed to our mission of animal assisted therapy and in fact, have provided financial support for the program in our 2013 fiscal year budget. We are actively exploring our options and look forward to letting you know soon what direction we will take with animal assisted therapy.
Therapy Animals vs. Service Animals
Therapy animals are not legally defined by federal law, but some states have laws defining therapy animals. They provide people with contact to animals, but are not limited to working with people who have disabilities. They are usually the personal pets of their handlers, and work with their handlers to provide services to others. Federal laws have no provisions for people to be accompanied by therapy animals in places of public accommodation that have “no pets” policies. Therapy animals usually are not service animals.
Service animals are legally defined (Americans With Disabilities Act, 1990) and are trained to meet the disability-related needs of their handlers who have disabilities. Federal laws protect the rights of individuals with disabilities to be accompanied by their service animals in public places.
For more information regarding service animals, please contact Pet Partners at:
Email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Call: 425.679.5500 (main line)
OR 425.679.5526 (direct line for service animal inquiries: Monday/Wednesday/Friday)
National Service Animal Resource Center>