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2:20pm June 9, 2014
waltzingwithmonsters-deactivate asked: hey, i was wondering, could you talk a little about fey as your therapy animal? i'm trying to convince my partner that a cat would be helpful to have as a therapy animal and companion but most therapy animals i'm aware of are dogs

Fey isn’t a therapy animal.  Fey would make a horrible therapy animal.

Fey used to be a service animal under US law, and currently qualifies only as an assistance animal under housing law.

A service animal is an animal that performs a particular task.  She used to qualify as that, but they changed the laws so that only dogs can be service animals.  Now she qualifies as an assistance animal under housing law, so she can live with me without being considered a pet.  But she no longer qualifies as a service animal, which has implications for outside the home that I never really took advantage of anyway because she didn’t have the temperament for working outside the home.

At any rate, what Fey does for me is that when I have frozen up (I have autistic catatonia, a movement disorder that can cause freezing) she will run up and down my body and nudge me in a particular pattern that makes me able to move again.  She’s also been known to detect seizures and lead me to lie down somewhere and then lie on top of me until the seizure is over.

I don’t know a lot about therapy animals, but I don’t think they make any difference in terms of housing law.  Therapy animals are usually animals that are taken to places like hospitals so that people can pet the animal and feel better, that kind of thing.  I don’t know as much about that because Fey would hate that kind of life.

But basically there are legal differences in the US (only country I’m familiar with) between service animals, assistance animals, therapy animals, and emotional support animals.  Only dogs can be service animals these days, but Fey used to qualify before that was true.  Now she’s an assistance animal.  Not a therapy animal or an emotional support animal.  I don’t think emotional support animals have particular legal rights but I could be wrong.