Service Animals

Service Animals

 Click the boxes below to learn more about service animals at Fort Necessity National Battlefield.

National Park Service Policy

• The National Park Service (NPS) policy outlines use of service animals by persons with disabilities in national parks. 

What is a Service Animal?

• Dogs classified as service animals are individually trained to perform a specific task that assists a person with a disability.
• Service dogs are legally permitted anywhere that visitors can go.

Common Tasks Performed by Service Animals

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.

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
• Other duties not listed

Emotional Support / Companion Animals

Emotional support, therapy, and companion animals are not service animals under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). These animals have not been trained to provide a task directly related to a disability.

• Emotional support animals are considered to be a pet.
• Service dogs-in-training are not service animals under ADA, but are considered pets.
• Pets must abide by the Individual Park Pet Regulations.

 

Leashed service dog.

National Park Service