Service animals provide essential assistance to people with disabilities and are highly trained for demanding work. Their welfare needs during service, transition, and retirement deserve dedicated attention.
Service animals provide indispensable support to people with disabilities, but their welfare obligations run throughout their working lives and into retirement. The demands of service work — constant public exposure, the need to suppress natural behaviors, and emotional attunement to a person in distress — are significant. High-quality service animal programs monitor welfare throughout working lives, provide downtime and play, and have structured retirement programs that respect the animal as an individual beyond their utility.