Service Animals and Search and Rescue Dogs
Ten sections that define a service animal, say where it may go, and make interfering with one a crime — and that say nothing at all about fees, deposits or damage. For an assistance animal in your home the picture is split between this chapter and the Law Against Discrimination, and this page says how. The full statutory text, hosted for reference.
Ten sections, and it is important to be clear about what they cover. RSA 167-D is an access statute. It says a service animal may go where its handler goes in public facilities and places of public accommodation, licenses those animals, and makes interfering with one a crime. In a community association it plainly reaches the parts of your community the general public is invited into — a clubhouse open to the public, a rental office. It reaches your home more directly than it first appears, too: RSA 167-D:4 makes it lawful for a service animal to accompany its handler into any “public facility, housing accommodation, or place of public accommodation to which the general public is invited”, and RSA 167-D:1, I defines a housing accommodation as real property used or occupied as a home or residence. Whether the trailing words qualify all three nouns or only the last is not settled on the face of the section, so read this chapter with RSA 354-A rather than instead of it.
For an assistance animal in your dwelling, the duty an association is most often held to is somewhere else: the reasonable-accommodation rule at RSA 354-A:11, III(b), which makes it a civil rights violation to refuse a reasonable accommodation in rules, policies, practices or services where one is necessary to give a person with a disability equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling. That is the section behind a request to waive a no-pets covenant — and it protects assistance animals generally, where this chapter covers dogs only.
What counts as a service animal here
RSA 167-D:1, IV defines the term narrowly and the definition does the work. A service animal means “any dog individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of an individual with a disability, including a physical, sensory, psychiatric, intellectual, or other mental disability”. The next sentence is the limit: “Other species of animals, whether wild or domestic, trained or untrained, are not service animals for purposes of this definition.” A dog, and only a dog.
RSA 167-D:2, I requires the work or tasks to be directly related to the handler’s disability, and then gives a list that is expressly “not limited to” what it names — navigation for a blind or low-vision handler, alerting a deaf or hard-of-hearing handler, nonviolent protection or rescue work, pulling a wheelchair, assisting during a seizure, alerting to allergens, retrieving medicine or a telephone, physical support and balance, interrupting impulsive or destructive behaviours for a psychiatric or neurological disability, and alerting a diabetic handler to a change in blood sugar.
Then paragraph II draws the line that matters most in practice: “The crime determent effect of an animal’s presence and the provision of emotional support, well-being, comfort, or companionship does not constitute work or tasks for the purposes of this chapter.” An emotional support animal is not a service animal under RSA 167-D. That does not resolve whether an association must accommodate one in a dwelling — that question lives under RSA 354-A:11 and the federal Fair Housing Act, which use a different test.
RSA 167-D:1 also defines “housing accommodation” and “public facility” and gives a long list of what a “place of public accommodation” includes, and RSA 167-D:1, VI defines a search and rescue dog.
Where the animal may go
RSA 167-D:4 is the access rule: it is lawful for any service animal to accompany his or her handler or trainer “into any public facility, housing accommodation, or place of public accommodation to which the general public is invited, subject only to the conditions and limitations established by law and applicable alike to all persons”. RSA 167-D:5 extends the same rule to dogs on search and rescue missions requested by a government agency, travelling to or from the scene included. RSA 167-D:6 gives a trainer, while actually training, the same access rights and the same responsibilities as a handler with a disability. RSA 167-D:3 excludes institutions and bona fide clubs that are distinctly private in nature, and certain religious educational facilities.
RSA 167-D:9 protects a person who chooses not to use a service animal: they keep all the rights and privileges the law gives other people, and not using one “shall not be held to constitute nor be evidence of contributory negligence”.
What this chapter does not say
RSA 167-D contains no provision about fees, deposits, extra charges, or an owner’s liability for damage caused by a service animal. Searching the full text of this chapter for fee, charge, deposit, damage, liable and liability returns nothing.
Two provisions elsewhere in the RSA do bear on the subject, and neither is an access rule or a housing rule. RSA 466:8, II provides that no fee shall be required for the municipal registration and licensing of a service animal dog as defined in RSA 167-D:1, IV — a town clerk’s fee, not an association’s. And RSA 466:19 entitles a person to whom, or to whose property, damage is occasioned by a dog they do not own or keep to recover from the person who owns, keeps or possesses it, unless the damage was occasioned to someone engaged in a trespass or other tort; the section carries no service-animal exception.
What New Hampshire does not have is the rule some states put in their access chapter — that a place of public accommodation or a housing provider may charge nothing extra for a service animal but may recover for damage it does. That rule is not in RSA 167-D. Questions about a pet fee or deposit for an assistance animal in a dwelling are answered instead by the reasonable-accommodation analysis under RSA 354-A:11 and the federal Fair Housing Act.
HUD’s 2020 guidance on assessing a request to have an animal as a reasonable accommodation↗ is the document to read next.
Licensing, misrepresentation and penalties
RSA 167-D:7 is one line: service animals shall be licensed as provided in RSA 466, the Dogs and Cats chapter. RSA 167-D:8 makes four things unlawful — prohibiting, hindering or interfering with a handler or trainer who otherwise complies with the limitations applicable to persons without disabilities; fitting an animal with a collar, leash, vest, sign or harness representing it as a service animal, or requesting a service animal tag under RSA 466:8, when it is not one; wilfully interfering, or attempting to interfere, with a service animal; and representing that one has a disability or is a trainer, or impersonating a person with a disability, in order to obtain a service animal, accommodations or service animal accessories.
RSA 167-D:10 makes any violation a misdemeanor. Wilfully causing physical injury to a service animal — or wilfully allowing your own animal to do so — is a misdemeanor, and a class A misdemeanor if a veterinarian or trainer determines the injury leaves the animal incapable of returning to service. On conviction the court may order restitution to the person or agency owning the animal, covering veterinary bills, the replacement cost of the animal if it is incapable of returning to service, and the handler’s or trainer’s salary for the time their services are lost.
Enforcement of the discrimination side sits with the New Hampshire Commission for Human Rights↗. The rest of the tab is on the New Hampshire HOA laws hub.
Contents · 10 sections ▾
- RSA 167-D:1 Definitions
- RSA 167-D:2 Service Animal Duties
- RSA 167-D:3 Private Clubs, Etc
- RSA 167-D:4 Service Animals May Accompany
- RSA 167-D:5 Application of RSA 167-D:4 to Search and Rescue Dogs
- RSA 167-D:6 Service Animal Trainer
- RSA 167-D:7 Licensing
- RSA 167-D:8 Prohibited Acts
- RSA 167-D:9 Nonuse of Service Animal
- RSA 167-D:10 Penalty
As used in this chapter:
I. “Housing accommodation” means any publicly assisted housing accommodation or any real property, or portion thereof, which is used or occupied, or is intended, arranged, or designed to be used or occupied, as the home, residence, or sleeping place of one or more persons, but shall not include any single family residence the occupants of which rent, lease, or furnish for compensation not more than one room therein.
II. “Public facility” means any place of public accommodation and any street, highway, sidewalk, walkway, public building, and any other place or structure to which the general public is regularly, normally, or customarily permitted or invited.
III. A “place of public accommodation” shall mean, but shall not be limited to, any tavern roadhouse, hotel, motel, or trailer camp, whether for entertainment of transient guests or accommodation of those seeking health, recreation, or rest; any producer, manufacturer, wholesaler, distributor, retail shop, store establishment, or concession dealing with goods or services of any kind; any restaurant, eating house, or place where food is sold for consumption on the premises; any place maintained for the sale of ice cream, ice, and fruit preparations or their derivatives, soda water or confections, or where any beverages of any kind are retailed for consumption on the premises; any garage; any public conveyance operated on land or water, or in the air, or any stations and terminals thereof; any bathhouse, boardwalk, or seashore accommodation; any auditorium, meeting place, or hall; any theatre, motion picture house, music hall, roof garden, skating rink, swimming pool, amusement and recreation park, fair, bowling alley, gymnasium, shooting gallery, billiard and pool parlor, or any other place of amusement; any comfort station; any dispensary, clinic, or hospital; any public library; any kindergarten, primary and secondary school, trade or business school, high school, academy, college and university, or any educational institution under the supervision of the state board of education, or the commissioner of education of the state of New Hampshire.
IV. “Service animal” means any dog individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of an individual with a disability, including a physical, sensory, psychiatric, intellectual, or other mental disability. Other species of animals, whether wild or domestic, trained or untrained, are not service animals for purposes of this definition.
V. “Service animal trainer” means any person who is employed to train dogs for or is volunteering to raise dogs for a provider of service animals for persons with disabilities or an individual trainer who helps a person with disabilities to train his or her own service animal or an individual trainer who tests an animal to verify its eligibility for the New Hampshire service animal tag.
VI. “Search and rescue dog” means any dog which has been trained to perform typical search and rescue operations and is certified by a competent authority or holds a title from a competent authority or organization recognized by the office of the governor, the department of safety, the department of fish and game, or the Federal Emergency Management Agency or its successor agency.
Source. 2011, 170:2, eff. Jan. 1, 2012. 2014, 66:3, eff. Jan. 1, 2015.
I. The work or tasks performed by a service animal shall be directly related to the handler’s disability. Work and tasks may include, but is not limited to:
(a) Assisting individuals who are blind or have low vision with navigation and other tasks.
(b) Alerting individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing to the presence of people or sounds.
(c) Providing nonviolent protection or rescue work.
(d) Pulling a wheelchair.
(e) Assisting an individual during a seizure.
(f) Alerting individuals to the presence of allergens.
(g) Retrieving items such as medicine or a telephone.
(h) Providing physical support and assistance with balance and stability to individuals with mobility disabilities.
(i) Helping persons with psychiatric and neurological disability by preventing or interrupting impulsive or destructive behaviors.
(j) Alerting individuals with diabetes to a change in blood sugar levels.
II. The crime determent effect of an animal’s presence and the provision of emotional support, well-being, comfort, or companionship does not constitute work or tasks for the purposes of this chapter.
Source. 2011, 170:2, eff. Jan. 1, 2012. 2022, 26:1, eff. June 17, 2022.
Nothing herein contained shall be construed to include or apply to any institution, bona fide club, or place of accommodation, which is in its nature distinctly private; nor shall anything herein contained apply to any educational facility operated or maintained by a bona fide religious or sectarian institution; and the right of a natural parent or one in loco parentis to direct the education and upbringing of a child under his or her control is hereby affirmed; nor shall anything herein contained be construed to bar any private secondary or postsecondary school from using good faith criteria other than race, creed, color, national origin, ancestry, or disability in admission of students.
Source. 2011, 170:2, eff. Jan. 1, 2012.
It is lawful for any service animal to accompany his or her handler or trainer into any public facility, housing accommodation, or place of public accommodation to which the general public is invited, subject only to the conditions and limitations established by law and applicable alike to all persons.
Source. 2011, 170:2, eff. Jan. 1, 2012.
The provisions of RSA 167-D:4 shall also apply to dogs involved in search and rescue missions at the request of a government agency when such dogs are in the course of, or traveling to or from the scene of, their official duties.
Source. 2011, 170:2, eff. Jan. 1, 2012.
A service animal trainer, while engaged in the actual training process and activities of such animals, shall have the same rights and privileges with respect to access to public facilities, and the same responsibilities as are applicable to persons with disabilities using a service animal.
Source. 2011, 170:2, eff. Jan. 1, 2012.
Service animals shall be licensed as provided in RSA 466.
Source. 2011, 170:2, eff. Jan. 1, 2012.
Cites other chapters: RSA 466
I. It is unlawful for a person, directly or indirectly, either to prohibit, hinder, or interfere with a service animal’s handler or trainer who otherwise complies with the limitations applicable to persons without disabilities.
II. It is unlawful for any person to fit an animal with a collar, leash, vest, sign, or harness of the type which represents that the animal is a service animal, or service animal tag issued under RSA 466:8 or to request a service animal tag issued under RSA 466:8 if in fact said animal is not a service animal.
III. It is unlawful for any person to willfully interfere or attempt to interfere with a service animal.
IV. It is unlawful for any person to represent that such person has a disability or is a service animal trainer for the purpose of acquiring a service animal unless said person has a disability or is a service animal trainer and to impersonate, by word or action, a person with a disability for the purpose of receiving service dog accommodations or service animal accessories such as a collar, leash, vest, sign, harness, or service animal tag, which represents that the animal is a service animal or to acquire a service animal tag issued under RSA 466:8.
Source. 2011, 170:2. 2012, 211:2, eff. Aug. 12, 2012. 2014, 66:1, eff. Jan. 1, 2015.
Cites other chapters: RSA 466
A person with a disability not using a service animal in any of the places, accommodations, or conveyances listed in RSA 167-D shall have all of the rights and privileges conferred by law upon other persons; and the failure of a person with a disability to use a service animal in those places, accommodations, or conveyances shall not be held to constitute nor be evidence of contributory negligence.
Source. 2011, 170:2, eff. Jan. 1, 2012.
I. Any person violating any provision of this chapter shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and subject to enhanced penalties in paragraphs II and III.
II. It is a misdemeanor if a person willfully causes physical injury to a service animal or willfully allows his or her animal to cause physical injury to a service animal. If the physical injury to a service animal is severe enough that a veterinarian or service animal trainer determines that the service animal is incapable of returning to service, that person shall be guilty of a class A misdemeanor.
III. In any case where a person is convicted of harming a service animal as described in paragraph II, he or she may be ordered by the court to make restitution to the person or agency owning the animal for any bills for veterinary care, the replacement cost of the animal if it is incapable of returning to service, and the salary of the service animal handler or trainer for the period of time his or her services are lost to the agency or self employment.
Source. 2011, 170:2, eff. Jan. 1, 2012. 2014, 66:4, eff. Jan. 1, 2015.
General information, not legal advice. Statutory text is reproduced from the New Hampshire Revised Statutes Annotated and may not reflect the most recent amendments.