Puppies, kittens and young animals
By animal
Nothing bars it, and the practical case is weaker than it will be in a year.
No minimum age exists
Nothing in the Fair Housing Act or in any state statute sets an age for an assistance animal, and no training is required, so a young animal is not excluded by any rule.
Why it is still a weaker request
- The second half of the test asks what this animal alleviates. An animal you have had for two weeks has a shorter track record to describe, and a clinician has less to go on.
- Young animals generate the noise, damage and house-training complaints that put accommodations at risk, and those complaints arrive in the first months.
- A provider who has granted an accommodation and then fielded three complaints in six weeks is a provider looking at the direct threat and damage grounds.
The growth problem
A puppy that will exceed a building weight cap when grown sometimes gets an accommodation granted quietly and then challenged eighteen months later. The accommodation attaches to the animal rather than to its weight on the day it was granted, so state the expected adult size in the original request and the question does not arise.
What helps
Being specific about the animal, naming the expected adult size and breed, and saying plainly what you are doing about training and house-training. None of that is legally required and all of it makes the arrangement work, which over a tenancy matters more than the document.
Where the animal is lawful, the species is something a clinician records rather than something that decides the outcome. The letter still rests on a licensed clinician concluding that you have a disability and that this animal alleviates a symptom of it.
Common questions
- Should I wait until the animal is older?
- If nothing is forcing the timing, a few months of living with the animal makes the request easier to document. If a housing deadline is already on you, ask now.