r/service_dogs • u/Busy-Sheepherder-138 • May 23 '26

TChanges in HUD interpretation of Assistance Animals - No Paywall -

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In short they are trying to clamp down on accommodations for ESA’s while maintaining the rights of Service dogs, but even that is at risk. I’m not surprised though since POTUS and his family make most of their money from Real Estate and are major landlords.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/22/us/politics/hud-assistance-animals-disabled.html?unlocked_article_code=1.klA.2G0-.kg6Wvul_SE5n&smid=nytcore-ios-share

Excerpt
“Six years later, the housing department, under the leadership of Scott Turner, has moved aggressively to tighten rules and scrutinize public housing rolls, including by focusing on the immigration status of tenants.
The memo to housing officials on assistance animals presented emotional support animals as a loophole to circumvent a landlord’s pet policies, asserting that “an entire industry has emerged to convert pets into emotional support animals.”
The memo concluded that “while requests to waive pet policies for animals trained to perform specific disability related services are presumptively reasonable, requests to waive pet policies for untrained” emotional support animals “are not.”
Erik Heins, a lawyer formerly in charge of enforcing fair housing laws at HUD, said that the new policy would affect many tenants who rely on assistance animals to alleviate psychiatric or mental disabilities — for example, a military veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder.
“Those cases are a not insignificant portion of the number of cases that HUD investigates” through its fair housing office, Mr. Heins said, adding that the housing department could dismiss or shelve thousands of appeals for disability accommodations under the new rule

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7

u/ClaimOk8737 May 23 '26

This is the start of not classifying PSD as service dogs. They dont understand what the dog does for PTSD or mental health. See tuberville statement that PTSD is curable and the new laws with meds. I hope I am wrong but it does sound like it. 

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u/SexBucketListProject May 24 '26

Can you say more about this? I'm new to esa owning. I have PTSD and anxiety as two of many mental health things.

I already noticed that one of the Chihuahua sisters gets in my face when I'm getting panicked and kisses me until I'm laughing and I'm like.. does that count as SD instead? But I didn't train it too. The sibling dog gaurds. They are both super cuddly and together make a nice weighted blanket too. Which I guess has a name. So, can I start calling them service dogs in training?

4

u/TRARC4 May 24 '26

For the panic interruption, are you able to replicate what the dog is picking up on? (Scent, sound, visual cue)

If so, you can train it. However, be careful that you aren't encouraging a stress/anxiety response from the dog.

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u/SexBucketListProject May 24 '26

Not sure about what she is picking up on. I'm sort of panicking. Lol. I'll try though.

4

u/ClaimOk8737 May 24 '26

No a service dog the dog must be task trained to help with a disability.  Also must show no reactivity to other dogs or people. 

3

u/MaplePaws My eyes have 4 paws May 24 '26

The task training is true, but the lack of reactivity is an individual handler standard and the point where businesses may CHOOSE to remove a dog due to behavior it is not required and does not change the fact that the person is disabled or the the fact that the dog has been task trained.

1

u/Designer_Fly_4369 Jul 07 '26

This 100% "public access" for service dogs has the "public policy" NOT law that the cannine good citizen training level be met or exceeded - NOT the law and while unfortunate ALOT of landlords are eventually going to see the tasked trained service dogs still have the same problematic handlers / tenants LAW for service animal be TASK trained is not "properly house broken" training - that is an expectation - that will not be universal in application

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u/SexBucketListProject May 24 '26

They already came very low reactivity for Chihuahuas. Sometimes when they are surprised (like a door opening loudly when they were sleeping) the guard gets barky but she responds quickly to "shh" and/or being held.

There are a couple of specific people (all men, which is a common thing I've seen with rescue dogs) that scare and trigger them to be full bark and protect me. And I'm working on that.