Forum, How Emotional Support and Service Animals Are Used
This Forum will discuss the variety of ways that animals are used to help people.
There will be two speakers. Kate Larlee will describe how she uses her fully trained service dog, She will also describe the differences between emotional support animals and service dogs, and the legal rights associated with each.
Larlee grew up in Maine. After teaching theatre for 17 years as an adjunct professor in Santa Fe, New Mexico, she attended law school at Michigan State University and worked at Elder Law of Michigan for three years before accepting her current position at Legal Services of Northern Michigan.
The second speaker, Andrea Senyk, will describe how she uses rabbits as emotional support animals for nursing home residents and senior citizens. Emotional support animals don’t have specific training and are not permitted inside public establishments.
A third category is a therapy animal that is trained to go to specific places, like nursing homes or to support crime victims during courtroom testimony. One of Senyk’s rabbits, Cadbury, was recently certified as a therapy rabbit. He brings comfort and joy to everyone he meets, including nursing home residents, students during stressful final exam weeks, and many friends and neighbors.
Senyk and her husband, Michael, raise Angora rabbits for their wool, which can be used in fiber arts, such as needle felting and hand-spun yarn. The Senyks both work at Michigan Tech.