How to Register an Emotional Support Animal

Commencement affair before you lot read any further, emotional back up animate being registration and emotional support animal certification is non real. You exercise not need to register dog as emotional back up animate being or certify them to be your ESA.

Woman Looking For Emotional Support Animal Registration Online

A lot of people get confused thinking you need to register your dog or cat as an assistance animal in order to be protected by federal laws. However, this is non the example at all.

If y'all annals them in an 'emotional support animal database' or become a document, you volition have no legal protection whatsoever.

So key takeaway: registering or certifying your pet as your emotional support animal volition not protect your rights to alive or fly with them as an ESA owner.

What is Legitimate Emotional Back up Animal Registration?

Once again, at that place is no such thing equally legitimate emotional back up registration.

The only way for you to be a legitimate ESA owner is to have an emotional back up fauna letter signed by a qualified or licensed mental health professional. This document must have the following:

  • An official letterhead

  • The name of the licensed mental health professional person (LMHP)

  • The proper name of the do

  • Phone number of the do

  • The blazon of medical license

  • Date the medical license was issued

  • The state of the therapist'southward jurisdiction

  • The blazon of beast

  • That they are your therapist and are currently treating y'all for a disability recognized in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM).

  • The date the letter was issued

It is them, the LMHP, to determine whether an emotional support animate being is correct for you lot.

If you are curious to know if you lot might qualify for an ESA, take a quick pre-screening here.

This is not to diagnose, but rather to see if y'all could do good from one. If so, you will exist put affect with a qualified or licensed mental health professional in your area.

Service Dog Registration

Online ESA Registration Button

Like emotional support animal registration, service dog registration is non real. Let us state that in that location is no official database or registry of service animals.

Service canis familiaris owners are non required to get or acquit any kind of service dog certificate, and businesses are non allowed to inquire for one.

Similarly, there is no centralized test or certification procedure for service animals, though the charities or organizations that train service dogs all have their own testing process to see if a domestic dog is set up to get a service canis familiaris.

Training is required, registering is non.

The Lie of Emotional Support Dog Certification

Emotional back up domestic dog certification is misleading because y'all don't need to certify your ESA. Sure, you lot could get a document for your emotional support cat or dog but an airline or landlord doesn't have to accept it. You lot're not protected by federal laws.

To live or fly with your emotional back up dog, all you lot need is your emotional back up animal letter of the alphabet.

Online 'registers' offering registration services, often bundled with fancy certificates, are merely trying to make some greenbacks off of people's lack of knowledge about ESAs.

In that location are many sites out there selling emotional support creature certificates, so what'due south a good way to spot these fake websites?

3 Means to Spot a Fake Emotional Support Brute Scam Site

The big ane - does information technology ask for yous to register your ESA or offer you a certificate if you pay? Steer clear!

2nd - Does the site give yous immediate blessing for y'all to go an emotional support creature? It should be known that not everyone qualifies for an ESA. Many people could benefit from one, just y'all would demand to be evaluated by a qualified or licensed mental health professional to corroborate your demand for an emotional support domestic dog or cat.

3rd - Who is signing the document? An emotional support animate being letter should simply be approved and signed past your qualified or licensed mental wellness professional. That's information technology. If it's anyone else, your letter is not valid and volition non uphold in a court of law.

Emotional Support Dog Laws

Emotional back up animals are protected by two federal laws in the U.Southward. - the Air Carrier Admission Human activity and the Fair Housing Human activity. Information technology is considering of these two laws that you are able to live and fly with your ESA.

Air Carrier Access Act (ACAA)

The Air Carrier Access Act (ACAA) prohibits discrimination against passengers with disabilities. Airlines are required to adapt passenger needs. If you need your animate being to help relieve symptoms associated with your emotional and/or mental disability, traveling with your beast is as simple as obtaining an emotional support animal letter of the alphabet.

While an airline must accept your valid emotional back up animal letter of the alphabet, you may also have to provide additional documentation in social club to wing. These documents could be a veterinary health form, creature behavior form, shot record, etc.. It is entirely upwardly to the airline's ESA policy.

Emotional Support Cat on Airplane

Fair Housing Act (FHA)

The Fair Housing Act (FHA) requires holding owners to make reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities, including those who are accompanied by assistance animals. Reasonable accommodations include you lot existence able to alive complimentary of accuse with your ESA or for you lot to live in a no-pets-allowed space with your ESA.

Exceptions to this are based on if the emotional support animate being is harmful to the property or others.

FAQs on Emotional Support Animal Certification/Registration

If I register dog as emotional support animal, can I fly with them?

Registering your canis familiaris as an emotional back up animal will non protect them under the Air Carrier Access Deed, and there is a good chance you won't exist able to fly with them every bit ESAs.

There's a possibility the airline may allow yous to bring them on board as a pet, only there are many things you must practise before such as pay a pet fee (ordinarily over $100 each way). There are too a very limited number of seats for pets so many times the owner cannot accept them on the aeroplane.

Is ESA Certification the same as ESA Registration?

ESA certification and ESA registration are not required for you to be a legal emotional support brute owner. If you sign up your ESA into a 'registry' or purchase an ESA certificate, you are non a valid emotional support animal possessor and could face up charges for misrepresenting a pet as an ESA.

Is there an Emotional Support Dog Registry?

Certain, there are many sites with an 'emotional support dog registry' simply waiting for you to pay and annals your domestic dog, simply it is a fraud. At that place is no such thing as a legal emotional support canis familiaris registry.

The Emotional Back up Dog Registration Myth

By now, information technology is understood that emotional support dog registration and certification is faux. If you want to live or fly with your emotional support animal, yous have to become an ESA letter of the alphabet. And the only way y'all tin get one is through a qualified or licensed mental health professional. They are the ones that tin corroborate you as a ESA possessor and only them.

Therapetic, powered by CertaPet, offers you a chance to get connected to a LMHP in your expanse, if you qualify.

An ESA Alphabetic character from CertaPet provides:

  • Recognition that you are a patient on a case-by-case basis under a licensed mental health professional'due south care for mental or emotional disabilities.

  • Verification that you lot are significantly limited past an individual disability, such equally low or a like status, affecting your mental well-beingness.

  • Prescription for an emotional support canis familiaris (also known as a companion dog), or other back up animal, equally a necessary reinforcement for your mental health within a short span of time.