Service Dogs_Agressive Breeds

[celswood]

Hi,

Have been in the campground industry for a bit and have not run across a service dog issue until this writing.
On a monthly basis we don't accept dogs over 20 lbs., on a daily and monthly basis we don't accept aggressive breeds.
Had an inquiry from a person who would like to stay with us monthly with their 80lb Service Dog that is an aggressive breed that assists in emotional support.
If anyone has already dealt with this issue would appreciate your feed-back.

Thank you.

[Randy@DCVRV Park]

The American Disability Act(ADA) requires that you allow a SERVICE DOG without question(* see below). You cannot ask why they have the service dog, what disability it assist with(though if they tell you, that's OK), or anything else about WHY they have it, but you are perfectly within your rights to ask them for documentation showing that it is, in fact, a trained, registered service dog. I would strongly encourage you(and any park, for that matter) to make copies of the service dog registry info, should something happen with the animal and other campers. If they balk at producing paperwork showing their dog is trained/registered, that would be a red flag for me. It should probably be noted that sometimes service dog owners may not have their documentation with them at a restaurant, bar, or the like, but one would assume that if they're driving their house across the country, the paperwork would be in the house. . .

We recently had some residents who claimed to have a service dog, but was unable to show training papers, registration, etc. They tried to pull the ADA card, saying they did not have to provide information but that I could not ask for proof it was a service dog. - they had the dog in the pool ! Once I quoted them the federal law, it was no longer an issue with them. They got evicted anyway, but not because of the dog issue.

The US Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division Disability Rights Section has a couple of very good PDFs available to help you understand where you stand as park management.

* Here's a quote from the same PDF regarding a misbehaving service animal:

Q: What if a service animal barks or growls at other people, or otherwise acts out of control?

A: You may exclude any animal, including a service animal, from your facility when that animal's behavior poses a direct threat to the health or safety of others. For example, any service animal that displays vicious behavior towards other guests or customers may be excluded. You may not make assumptions, however, about how a particular animal is likely to behave based on your past experiences with other animals. Each situation must be considered individually.

Although a public accommodation may exclude any service animal that is out of control, it should give the individual with a disability who uses the service animal the option of continuing to enjoy its goods and services without having the service animal on the premises.

So, what it seems to say is that you cannot deny service to the customer with a service animal because of your existing rules or assumptions, but you can refuse it if the animal is violating safety and health.

Hope this helps somewhere . .

[celswood]

Surely do appreciate the time you took to educate us including referring to some PDFs that are available.

Thank you so much sir.

~Christy

[Randy@DCVRV Park]

Hope it helps. I'll try to answer other issues if I can.

Surely do appreciate the time you took to educate us including referring to some PDFs that are available.

Thank you so much sir.

~Christy