By Jason Williams

Understanding the general stigma behind therapy animals such as proof for having the animal in certain situations, but how might this affect the people who experience this? Looking at big situations like more recent ones, there have been individuals who have therapy animals and bring them into restraunts because they need them in order to function properly and in a lot of restaurants out there they have policies agaisnt animals indoors. Being kicked out of an establishment because you have a therapy animal can be a really embarrasing situation that can also cost your time if you were to make a reservation or have plans for an event. Similarly there has been a lot of news about service animals on planes and how they need certain qualifications in order to be allowed. This is especially concerning considering a significant amount of people have trouble with anxiety while flying and their therapy animals are supposed to help with that.

Other stigmas that might affect people are:

- Judgement for having an animal in certain situations such as dining or flying

- Being asked for their personal medical history and or disability for having a therapy animal

- Not believing these animals are actually helpful

When the stigma around having a therapy animal involves judging, this can increase the emotions the owner of the service animal has possibly causing more anxiety or fear with the animal.

Being asked your private medical history is a very private thing not a lot of people want to talk about so this also can cause more emotions with the owner causing anxiety / fear to go out with their service animal

Not believing the animal is actually beneficial can be the worst. You mostly see this with children because they dont understand that the dog is there for a reason and has a job to do, but there are times where adults go up to service animals or parents let their kids go up to therapy animals and pet them, possibly distracting them from their jobs in keeping the owner calm, healthy and safe.