Originally Posted by
gemac
The label for many service animals is so that they can perform their job without being interfered with by strangers. A guide dog for the blind will become distracted if you come up and pet it. The dog has been trained to different standards of behavior if it is working and if it is not. If you treat it as though it is not working, it will go out of working mode.
I'm not sure if this is true with emotional support animals. As far as I know, they are working all the time, and do pretty much the same thing all the time, so there is no benefit to identifying them.
I don't disagree with any of that. That said, neither the service animals nor their owners need to self-identify in order to be protected by law--that was my only point. It's a matter for the owner of the animal (which need not be either a guide dog for the blind or an emotional support animal) to handle that situation in whatever way he or she sees fit; if the owner feels it best to publicly identify the animal as a service animal as you lay out above, that's the owner's prerogative, but it's by no means required.