Spoiler alert, there is no difference. Haha. Hello, welcome or welcome back. First off, it is way too cold to be wearing a sleeveless shirt in Calgary right now. It's like minus freezing outside and it's snowing. Hi, Seed Girl. You know this video is about you don't you. But yeah, back to the shirt. I'm going to show you this and then put on a sweater instead. Daaah! Wooo! Haha. I made some merch and I bought this because summer is coming up hopefully one day. So far the only design that I have is the post-traumatic victory logo but yeah, if you want to buy a shirt with that logo on it, you can go into the description and there will be a link to my spread shirt shop. Anyway on with the video and also on with the sweater just give me a sec. Okay that's a lot better. Hi, Seed Girl. Haha. You're so good. Thank you. Yeah, the service dog puppy in my lap is actually what this video is going to be about today. Not her specifically but service dogs in general. And the difference between a psychiatric service dog and a real service dog. Spoiler alert, there is no difference. Haha. No, there's no difference between this type of service dog and that type of service dog other than the service that they provide to their handler. Will you stop sniffing that please? Some people seem to be operating under the huge misconception of I can pet this service dog because it's not for seizures but if it was for something as serious as seizures then I shouldn't pet it. It's just really not true. So I think it's really really important for people to understand that a service dog is a service dog is a service dog. It does not matter what the job is that the dog does. It does not matter what tasks it is trained to do. The way that you interact with it should always be the same. The way that you interact with my service dog is that you don't and you talk to me because I am the person and the service dog is the medical equipment with a heartbeat. I'm not trying to call anybody out. There's probably people in my life who are going to be like, oh my god she made a video about me. But I promise. This video is not about you. It is about everybody because everybody does the same thing. There's a couple things that I hear a lot when I go out. One of them is, I know I'm not supposed to pet your dog but can I please pet your dog? If I'm feeling well that day then yeah I will sometimes take off her vest and have her sit nice and then you can say hi and pet her briefly and then we'll be on our way. But most of the time I'm sorry but the answer is no because she's working. And B, I'm not obligated to let you touch my dog just because you want to. She's there for me and if I feel that I actually actively need her in that moment to be doing her job then no I'm sorry you can't pet her. A lot of people think, oh the goal is to not need her to do anything eventually right? And like yeah that would be great. I would absolutely love to not need her one day. But the fact is I need her. And just because I don't have seizures doesn't mean that my dog's job is any less important than a seizure alert dog. Sadie is being trained to do medical alert because panic attacks are a very real, very physical thing. And she is being trained to keep me safe when I dissociate and she is being trained to bring me back into my mind and body when all of these things happen. She does deep pressure therapy for me every single day and her alerts sometimes look like bad behavior because I've trained her to like really get my attention because when I'm dissociated I don't notice things as well. I want to imagine that. So I have her trained to jump up and put her paw on my leg or my tummy and when I take her to work. I am going to try to train her not to put her paws on my tummy because a lot of the time I'm a makeup artist so a lot of the time I wear a brush belt and I don't want her putting her paws all over my makeup brushes and making me have to go sanitize them again and again and again and again. But I digress. The point is even if you can't see the job that my dog is doing for me she's doing a job for me. So I think that is just as important as if she were a seizure alert dog. Yeah. I said it. Controversy. Yeah. If I have a service dog, if somebody else that you see in public has a service dog, there's a reason for it and that reason is typically none of your business. I mean well of course it's none of your business and I say this with love. I promise I'm not calling you out but I'm calling you the heck out. I just think it's important for people to realize that psychiatric service dogs, mobility service dogs, medical alert service dogs, medical response service dogs. There are a million different types of service animal. They all have an important job to do and I think every service dog's job is equally important because if it wasn't super important the person wouldn't have a service animal. So that's kind of my take on it. Lately when people have been asking me like, oh what's she for? I have been a little bit less comfortable with like in the middle of the grocery store being like, oh she's for my complex PTSD. So I usually switch from like, oh she's for PTSD to she does medical alert because that's the truth. I just I don't have to disclose my disability to people in the store that way. Instead of telling them the disability that she's for I tell them the tasks that she does for me and sometimes they really push it and I'm not at the point yet where I can be like, wow that was really rude you must be so embarrassed. So usually I end up just telling them but you know bike size pieces one day at a time, one day I'll get there and I'll be able to say, hey heck off eh? But until then that's that I guess. If you have any questions about psychiatric service dogs or medical alert service dogs or anything that I might know the answer to please feel free to ask me in the comments below and I'm very open to having conversations about my service dog here because you know the whole point of this YouTube channel is to document my my journey towards not being effed by complex PTSD and this Sadie girl is a very big part of that. You want to put your paws up? She just wanted me I don't know what she wants. I love you. You're just, she's a very good girl. I guess the whole point of this video is later I said earlier, a service dog is a service dog is a service dog. There is a huge difference between a service animal and an emotional support animal. I'll go into that a little bit I guess. An emotional support animal doesn't really receive any training specific to your disability. What an emotional support animal does is just provides you with emotional support. He can be any kind of animal. Usually service animals are dogs or miniature horses. I think those are the two that are legally recognized. And then emotional support animals are a dog cat, bunny, snake hamster, ferret, bird. I don't know. I'm just trying to think of every type of pet you can have. An ESA, emotional support animal, ESA. They're legally considered to be required for a disability if you have a doctor's note I believe, but they do not have any public access rights because they're not, I feel rude saying that they're glorified pets because they are so much more than that. But in the eyes of the law they are not allowed to go out in public with you and they don't perform any tasks specifically for your disability to help you get through the day. I guess they just give you something outside of yourself to love and take care of and provide warmth literally and emotionally. And I think that's great and amazing. And I have a couple friends who actually have emotional support animals and they do amazing, amazing wonderful, beautiful things for the mental health of these friends I'm talking about. I'm very excited that animals exist. You know, Sadie, what are you doing? She's licking a garbage bag in the hallway, that's what she's doing. Another thing that I think is really important to note about service animals is that they get to be real, real dogs when they're at home. I've had a couple friends come over to my house and just like avoid eye contact with Sadie and try not to touch her and they give all the love to Marco because he's the pet and she's working dog. It took me a few minutes to catch up to this the first time. But once I realized they were just like actively avoiding her, I let them know like hey, she's a real dog when she's off duty so you can like rub her belly and play with her and make kissing noises at her and let her crawl on you. It's fine. And usually they're very happy about that. Service dogs get to be real dogs when they're not on duty and a lot of people feel bad for service dogs because like oh my god, how mean your owner's not letting me pet you and you never get to play and rub, rub, rub, but they get to be real dogs when they're not on duty. Like if you're sitting at home, your dog is, your service dog is allowed to roll around on the floor and play with the ball. It's fine. They're real dogs. They're not robots. Just like when you go to work, you get to come home and relax. It's kind of the same for them. I do get Sadie to take care of me at home too sometimes. She does task for me at home, but she's not in the vest so she doesn't have to always be on and focused on me while we're at home. If that makes sense, I hope that makes sense. Thank you so much for watching. Once again, if you have any questions or comments on any of this, I would love to chat with you in the comments below. And yeah, I'm gonna go see if my computer will let me edit this. Don't forget to be kind to yourself and others today. And I will see you very soon. Bye.