October 13, 2006

These Student Requests Are a Different Animal

Colleges accustomed to guide dogs now grapple with demands to allow ferrets and snakes that provide psychiatric support

By Kelly Field

Sarah B. Sevick considers her pet ferret, Lilly, to be a service animal, no less legitimate than a guide dog. True, the support Lilly provides is emotional, rather than physical, but that does not change her status under the law, Ms. Sevick reasons.

So Ms. Sevick, who suffers from anxiety and depression, was surprised when administrators at Our Lady of the Lake University, in Texas, told her she could not bring Lilly to the campus because the ferret did not qualify as a service