Anxiety Depression Symptom, Bipolar Disorders

Bibolar disorder service dogs in Texas?

I have a friend who has bipolar disorder and they wanted to know the rules or regulations for services dogs for people with bipolar disorder anyone who can point me to a website or help it would be appreciated.

There are two elements under the Americans with Disabilities Act, which tends to give broader protections than TX law, so that’s the one that would prevail.

First: the person must be legally disabled. Though some people with service dogs are diagnosed with bi-polar disorder, not all people with bi-polar disorder will qualify for a service dog. Some people with service dogs (specifically those with guide dogs) are visually impaired (blind), but not everyone with a visual impairment will qualify for a guide dog. (Those with correctable or mild vision impairments will just wear glasses/contacts, or manage without well enough.) The distinction is in severity. In order to qualify as a disability, the impairment, be it physical or mental, must substantially limit a person’s ability to perform major life activities. Please note: there is a difference between daily life activities (driving a car, going shopping or to a movie, riding a bus, etc.) and major life activities (breathing, seeing, hearing, walking, thinking, etc.).

Most people (75%) diagnosed with a mental illness will not be disabled by that illness, but some (25%) will. Consultation with a mental health professional such as a psychiatrist or psychologist should help to determine which group an individual falls into.

Second: the dog must be individually trained to perform tasks that mitigate the disability of the disabled person. It is not enough that the person benefit from the mere presence of the dog. The dog has to be trained to actually do something the person cannot do that enables them to perform whatever major life activity or activities they cannot perform because of their disability.

“Animals whose sole function is to provide emotional support, comfort, therapy, companionship, therapeutic benefits, or to promote emotional well-being are not service animals.” — U.S. Department of Justice (the government agency charged with regulating and enforcing the ADA as it pertains to service animals and public access)

The task set has to match the disability. For example, teaching a dog to pick up dropped items would NOT qualify the dog as a service dog unless the owner’s own disability prevented them from picking up the dropped items themselves. Here’s some additional information on psychiatric service dogs: http://www.servicedogcentral.org/content/node/74

— edited to add —

A service dog is not a pet. A therapy dog is not a type of service dog. It typically takes 18-24 months to fully train a service dog, compared to 8 weeks to train a therapy dog. Big difference.

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KatieW is right about sites that list one set of tasks for everyone with bi-polar. Each person, regardless of the nature of their disability (physical or mental, or the specific diagnosis) is going to be impacted by their disability in different and unique ways. I have a brain injury and friends with brain injuries and service dogs. Each of our service dogs is INDIVIDUALLY trained to meet our individual specific needs. Any site or program with a cookie cutter approach (one size fits all) doesn’t get what a service dog really is.

The U.S. Department of Justice maintains a toll-free ADA information line for questions about the ADA, including questions about service dogs, who qualifies, what the law says, etc.:

800 – 514 – 0301 (voice)
800 – 514 – 0383 (TTY)