Regulations and Statistics About Assistance Dogs in Australia

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Australia's Disability Discrimination Act of 1992 requires all public spaces to allow service dogs, also called assistance dogs. Under federal law, public spaces include lodging establishments. The law does restrict the animals to those that are clean, well-behaved and certified to be assistance dogs. A Boutique Hotel in Melbourne thus welcomes service dogs even if it does not allow dogs that are primarily thought of as pets or companions.

small hotels of Assistance Dogs

The second-most common owner of a service dog has severe vision impairment or cannot see at all. Their service animals are usually called guide dogs. hotel suite published in 2016 found about 30 percent of Australia's service animals to be guide dogs. Interestingly, though, hotel luxury have assistance animals is for psychological disorders, including depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety. That accounted for 42 percent of these animals in the research findings.

Assistance dogs also are helpful for people dealing with chronic disorders like multiple sclerosis, impaired hearing, cerebral palsy and epilepsy. Some men and women with autism find the dogs help them cope more effectively because the animals have a calming effect. They might have been living with a service dog since childhood.

Proof of Certification

People sometimes make complaints about not being allowed to go somewhere with the service dog. This is more likely when their disability is not an obvious one. Hotels such as Treasury on Collins make ask to see the animal's certification. This keeps the system fair for all people who own one of these animals and want to stay at the hotel. It also can prevent fraud by people pretending to have a disability, a problem that has been getting worse in Australia and elsewhere.

Behavior in a Hotel

With service dogs being fully trained in correct behavior, they are unlikely to cause trouble by excessive barking or by displaying any aggression toward hotel guests. Since the owner needs to be with the animal nearly all the time, the hotel counts on this person not leaving the dog in the room alone for hours on end.

Other people in the hotel can identify the dog as an assistance animal if it's wearing an official vest. Some owners place a written notice on the vest asking people to refrain from petting the animal. It's somewhat common for men, women and kids to reach out to a dog without bothering to ask first whether this is OK. Service dogs are not to be distracted from their duties.