Esa in uk?

[MzGray]

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Hi, I'm moving to London from New York and I have a question about ESA or emotional support animals.

Does the UK recognize ESA's on planes and apartments? Is my ESA letter from esadoctors.com still valid here or do I have to find a local doctor? I will be crossing the pond in July and would appreciate any information from someone that has an emotional support dog.

Thanks! :*

 

[eingana]

Hi MzGray, and welcome to DogForum

I'm afraid that for the most part emotional support animals are not recognised in the UK, as they are officially not service animals. Service animals have lots of rights in terms of planes, access to services and housing, but ESAs aren't registered and administered in the same way as service animals so they get none of those rights over here.

I think you need to be aware that the majority of apartments which are in blocks in the UK have a blanket 'no animals' rule too, which applies to everything (from a goldfish upwards) apart from registered service animals. A friend has a dog which is her assistance dog for all sorts of physical things, but because she trained the dog herself, the dog has no accreditation from any of the organisations that register and train dogs, and consequently she cannot go with the dog into any of the places where guide dogs, hearing dogs and assistance dogs are all permitted.

The one source that I can find about ESAs basically says that there are none over here I'm afraid:

http://www.assistancedogs.org.uk/faqs/

If the scheme doesn't extend over here then it's likely that your dog will just be treated as 'your dog' over here, rather than having any sort of legal rights,

Sorry that this is probably not the answer you were looking for.