California Laws on Psychiatric Service Dogs and Emotional Support Animals in Public Places (2024)

California law allows people with disabilities to bring trained service dogs—including psychiatric service dogs—but not emotional support animals, to all public places. Several California laws set out the rights of people with disabilities who use animals to assist them. These laws include:

• California's Unruh Civil Rights Act
• the California Disabled Persons Act (CDPA), and
• California's Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA).

Federal disability rights laws, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), also protect the rights of people who use service dogs and emotional support animals. (Learn more about federal laws regarding service animals.) When federal and state laws differ, whichever one offers greater protection to people with disabilities generally applies.

Which California Laws Protect Assistance Animals and When?

Which California law applies depends on three factors:

• what kind of animal it is
• how the animal helps the disabled individual, and
• the setting or place involved.

Service Dogs Defined Under California Law

A "service dog," under California law, is a dog trained to help a specific individual with a disability with services such as fetching dropped items or pulling a wheelchair. The law also identifies "minimal protection work" (non-violent guarding) and "rescue work" (such as emergency evacuations) as services that a trained service dog can provide. (Cal. [Civ.] Code § 54.1.)

There are two important things to note about California's definition of service dogs. First, California law limits the definition of service animal to dogs. (But because the ADA allows the use of miniature horses as service animals in some limited circ*mstances, California must as well.) Second, the definition is further limited to dogs that are trained to help individuals with their specific requirements.

So, no animal other than a dog can qualify as a service animal, even if that animal is trained to assist a person with a disability. Additionally, a dog won't qualify as a service animal unless it's individually trained to perform disability-related tasks for someone with a disability. For example, a psychiatric service dog is trained to perform tasks directly related to its handler's specific mental impairment.

How Is "Psychiatric Service Dog" Defined in California?

California doesn't have a specific definition for "psychiatric service dog," but a dog individually trained to assist someone with a mental disability is considered a service dog. And someone who uses such a dog is entitled to the same rights under the law as someone with a physical disability who uses a service dog.

Examples of work or tasks that a service dog can be trained to perform for someone with a mental disability include:

• waking someone with clinical depression and coaxing them out of bed at a specified time in the morning
• responding to an owner's panic attack by initiating contact to comfort the individual, and
• alerting a person exercising poor judgment due to bipolar disorder that they're driving dangerously.

Emotional Support Animal Defined Under California Law

An "emotional support animal" (ESA) is a dog or other animal that isn't trained to perform specific acts directly related to an individual's disability. Instead, the animal's owner derives a sense of well-being, safety, or calm from the animal's companionship and presence. An emotional support animal doesn't need to be a dog but can be.

(For more on the basic difference between service dogs and ESAs, see our article on service dogs and support animals.)

What Disabilities Qualify a Person to Use a Service Dog or Support Animal in California?

California law typically offers greater protection than federal law for people with disabilities. For example, California defines "disability" more broadly than the ADA does.

Under the federal ADA, a physical or mental impairment qualifies as a disability only if it "substantially limits" a major life activity, which includes activities like walking, seeing, hearing, and so on. (42 U.S. Code § 12102.)

In California, a physical or mental impairment need only limit (not substantially limit) a major life activity, which simply means that the impairment must make the achievement of a major life activity difficult. (Cal. [Gov't] Code § 12926(j) and (m).) A major life activity refers to physical, mental, and social activities and working.

In California, a mental disability includes any mental or psychological disorder or condition that limits a major life activity, such as:

• intellectual disability
• clinical depression
• bipolar disorder
• organic brain syndrome,
• emotional or mental illness, or
• specific learning disabilities.

California doesn't consider compulsive gambling, kleptomania, or unlawful substance use disorders to be mental disabilities.

How California Protects Service Dogs in Public Areas

California law guarantees people who use trained service dogs full and equal access to public places.

What Places Are Public?

In California, the service dog guarantees apply to an even broader range of public places than the ADA covers, including:

• any place to which the general public is invited, including restaurants, hotels, theaters, and shops
• medical facilities, such as hospitals and physicians' offices, and
• any mode of transportation (whether private or public), including cars, buses, and trains.

Public places must allow persons with disabilities to bring in their service dogs and, if necessary, they must modify their practices to accommodate the dogs. Public places must also permit an authorized trainer to bring in a service dog, even if the trainer herself doesn't have a disability. (Cal. [Civ.] Code § 54.2.)

What About Service Dogs in California Zoos and Wild Animal Parks?

California has specific rules regarding the use of service dogs at zoos or wild animal parks. Such places aren't required to allow service dogs in areas where the zoo or park animals aren't separated from the public by a physical barrier. But a zoo or park that doesn't allow service dogs into such areas must provide free, clean, and safe kennel facilities. (Cal. [Civ.] Code § 54.7.)

Under some circ*mstances, the facility must also provide certain additional accommodations—such as free transportation and sighted escorts—to blind or visually impaired patrons and to individuals who rely on their service dog for mobility.

Can a Public Place in California Require Proof an Animal Is a Service Dog?

A public place can ask only two questions to determine if an individual's dog is a service dog:

• whether the dog is needed because of a disability, and
• what work the dog is trained to perform.

Staff at a public place can't require a person to "prove" that their dog is a service dog. A service dog isn't required to be registered, certified, or identified as a service dog. However, in California, pretending to be an owner of a service dog is a criminal misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $1,000, up to six months imprisonment, or both. (Cal. [Penal] Code § 365.7.)

Does California Protect the Use of Emotional Support Animals?

The protections discussed above don't apply to emotional support animals (ESAs). California law, like federal law, doesn't require that emotional support animals be allowed in public places.

California does have laws, however, protecting the use of emotional support animals in other settings, such as housing and work. To learn more, see Nolo's articles on:

• when California landlords have to allow psychiatric service dogs and emotional support animals, and
• how California protects psychiatric service dogs and emotional support animals in the workplace.

Until somewhat recently, federal law protected the rights of people with disabilities to bring their emotional support animals on commercial airplanes. Effective January 10, 2021, a U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) rule amended the Air Carrier Access Act (ACAA), allowing airlines to treat ESAs as pets instead of service animals. (85 Fed. Reg. 79742.)