In order to qualify for a psychiatric service dog (PSD), you must meet the criteria for having a mental or emotional health disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Air Carrier Access Act (ACAA). A licensed healthcare professional can help determine whether you are eligible and provide a signed PSD letter if you qualify. Conditions that may qualify for a PSD letter include:
• Chronic depression
• Severe anxiety
• Phobias 
• PTSD
• Learning disorders 
• ADHD
• Autism
• Bipolar disorder
• Mood disorders

For a dog to be fully qualified as a psychiatric service animal under the ADA and ACAA, your PSD must be fully trained to perform a task or job relating to the handler’s disability. You, the handler, can do that training without the assistance of a professional trainer. Professional trainers and organizations are available that can train a dog if you are unable to train the dog yourself. Per ADA and ACAA guidelines, it is perfectly acceptable to self-train a PSD.

To verify that you have a psychiatric service dog, third parties are allowed to ask you two questions:

1. Is the service dog required because of a disability?
2. What work or job has the service animal been trained to perform?

They are not allowed to ask you to demonstrate the dog’s task or request specific details regarding your disability. You do not need to present a registration, certificate, or any other documentation. The exception is air travel, where you will need to complete and submit the DOT Air Travel Form prior to your flight. 

For flights within, to, and from the US, the only document you need to fly with a psychiatric service dog is the DOT’s Service Animal Air Transportation Form. You must submit this form to your airline before boarding a flight with your PSD. The DOT form requires you to self-certify that you have a trained service dog that assists with a disability. You do not need to submit a PSD letter to the airline – the PSD letter is intended to assist you in your ability to make the representations regarding your mental health disability in the federal DOT form. There are penalties for making false representations on the DOT form, so it’s important that you are making true statements.

Airlines must accommodate passengers with psychiatric service dogs free of charge. PSDs are exempt from weight and size restrictions that apply to normal pets (non-assistance animals). 

If you would like, you may register your Psychiatric Service Dog but note that this is not a requirement.

An emotional support animal can be trained to become a psychiatric service dog, but it’s important to remember that they are not the same thing. ESAs and PSDs help with the same types of mental and emotional health illnesses, but a PSD must be trained to perform a task relating to the handler’s disability. If the PSD is not task-trained or the owner has no need for tasks performed by a dog that relate to their disability, then the animal cannot qualify as a psychiatric service dog.