What counts as a trained task

The test

A task is something the dog has been taught to do, that it does in response to a cue or a trained trigger, and that mitigates an effect of the handler's disability. The cue may come from the handler, or it may come from the handler's own body or behaviour, which is how alerting tasks work.

The useful way to check is to try to finish the sentence. My dog is trained to apply deep pressure to my chest when I lie down and give the command. My dog is trained to nose my hand when I start pulling at my hair. My dog is trained to walk ahead of me into a room and stop. Those are tasks. My dog knows when I am upset is not, however true it is.

Tasks that come up for psychiatric disabilities

• Deep pressure therapy. The dog lies across the handler's lap or chest on command, applying weight that interrupts a panic response.
• Interrupting a repetitive behaviour. The dog nudges, licks or paws at the handler when it observes a trained trigger such as skin picking, hair pulling or rocking.
• Grounding during dissociation. Trained physical contact and persistent engagement to re-orient a handler who has lost contact with their surroundings.
• Room search or perimeter check. The dog enters a space ahead of the handler on command, which addresses hypervigilance by substituting a check the handler would otherwise perform repeatedly.
• Blocking and circling. The dog positions itself to create physical space in a queue or crowd, for a handler whose disability makes proximity intolerable.
• Retrieving medication, a phone, or a named person. A concrete fetch task, often the easiest to train and the easiest to describe.
• Waking from night terrors, and interrupting a nightmare before it fully develops.
• Guiding a disoriented handler to an exit, to a seat, or home.
• Reminding the handler of a timed medication by a trained alert at a fixed time.

What is not a task, however much it helps

• Being present, being affectionate, or being a reason to get out of bed.
• Sensing a mood without any trained response to it. An untrained reaction is the dog being a dog.
• Protection, deterrence or guarding. Aggressive behaviour trained to deter other people is specifically excluded from the ADA definition of work or tasks, and claiming it is a fast route to being refused.
• Making the handler feel safe, where nothing in particular is done to produce that feeling.

How to answer when you are asked

Staff in a shop or restaurant may ask what work or task the dog has been trained to perform. The answer should be a short, concrete sentence naming the behaviour, not the diagnosis. She is trained to interrupt panic symptoms by applying pressure. He is trained to alert me to take medication and to guide me out of a building. You are not required to say what condition you have, and you should not have to.