What if a guide dog or service animal barks or growls at other people, or otherwise acts out of control?
Any animal, including a guide dog or service animal, can be excluded from a facility when that animal’s behavior poses a direct threat to the health or safety of others. For example, any guide dog or service animal that displays vicious behavior towards other guests or customers may be excluded. Each situation must be considered individually. Although a public accommodation may exclude any service animal that is out of control, it should give the individual with a disability who uses the service animal the option of continuing to enjoy its goods and services without having the service animal on the premises. There may be a few circumstances when a public accommodation is not required to accommodate a service animal–that is, when doing so would result in a fundamental alteration to the nature of the business. Generally, this is not likely to occur in restaurants, hotels, retail stores, theaters, concert halls, and sports facilities. But when it does, for example, when a dog barks durin
