What animals can be an Emotional Support Animal?

Typically, any well-behaved dog or cat. No special training is required. But proper socialization is expected wherever you go with your ESA. According to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Air Carrier Access Act, and Fair Housing Act, your Emotional Support Animal (ESA) does NOT need any specific training, but it must be manageable in public and controlled by you, its handler.

Note: While the law does not exclude any specific species from qualifying as ESAs, in reality, commonsense will prevail. For example, while there may not be any written exclusions, if a travel passenger presents with an ESA letter desiring to be accompanied in an aircraft cabin by a sheep as their ESA, the airlines will in all likelihood require the animal to be crated and travel in “cargo;” and that is if space allows. Usually animals bigger than a mid to (smaller in height) large dog are required to travel on separate cargo planes. Similarly, a landlord would most likely defend themselves successfully in a lawsuit based on their rejection of a tenant with an exotic, dangerous or very large animal as an ESA.