United States · federal law
Register your dog.
Carry the answer.
Service dog registration in the United States, answered from the ADA’s own rules — quoted word for word, free to read.
Private registry. Registration does not confer legal rights.
Sample card. Not a real registration.
Meet Scout
Hi, I’m Scout. What would you like to know?
Ask a question…
What this is
ServDog is a private registry. It is not a government agency, is not affiliated with any provincial program, the Canadian Transportation Agency, or the ADA, and registration does not create or confer any legal rights. Registration as a service dog is not required under the ADA.
Four things we will always tell you
Because a registry that will not say them is selling you something else.
Not by a business, not by a city, and not by us.
“Mandatory registration of service animals is not permissible under the ADA.”
“These documents do not convey any rights under the ADA and the Department of Justice does not recognize them as proof that the dog is a service animal.”
That sentence describes us too.
“A public accommodation shall not require documentation, such as proof that the animal has been certified, trained, or licensed as a service animal.”
A letter that carries weight comes from a health care professional who knows you. We have never met you and cannot write one.
Service dog law in the US, question by question
All US guidesThe registration card
In a shop or a restaurant no business may require a document — “A public accommodation shall not require documentation, such as proof that the animal has been certified, trained, or licensed as a service animal” (28 CFR § 36.302(c)(6)). The card is not a document anyone can be made to accept, and we will not tell you it is. What it does is keep your dog’s record in one place — the photo, the name, the number, and the tasks if you have switched them on — so that if you choose to show it, you are not scrolling for it.
PDF and image, for your phone's photos or to send ahead.
A print-ready sheet, two to a page, for a card in a wallet or a pocket.
Change a task or a photo in your account and the card follows.
What it is: a record you keep, shown as what it is. “This is my registry record” is the whole sentence.
What it is not: a document issued by a government. The Department of Justice says of documents sold online that they “do not convey any rights under the ADA” — and that sentence describes ours too.
Sample card. Not a real registration.
One free thing, and one you can buy
| What you get | Free | The card |
|---|---|---|
| Your dog's record and registration number | included | included |
| The door screen, with the ADA's rule word for word | included | included |
| The Taskbook and your documents | included | included |
| The public profile anyone can check by number | included | included |
| The handover, in plain text | included | included |
| Scout, answering from the verified US guides | included | included |
| The photo card with the scannable code — on the handover, the door screen, printed | not included | included |
| Price | Free | $49.95 USD, once |
Prices in US dollars, tax shown at checkout. No subscription, no renewal. Refund terms are one page, in plain language.
The record
Everything below comes with a free account. No subscription, no renewal, nothing that expires.
Create a free recordA registration number
Durable and yours. It does not change when you move, change vets, or change phones.
A QR profile you control
Anyone who scans sees what you have chosen to show — name, photo, status, and what your dog is trained to do if you switch it on. Your documents never appear.
The Taskbook
A dated entry for every task: what it does, why you need it, when it became reliable, who trained it, and the hours behind it. Exportable as a PDF.
One place for the documents
Your health care provider's letter, vaccination and veterinary records, your trainer's paperwork. Private to you — and ready for the places that do ask: an airline's DOT form, a landlord considering an accommodation request, a boarding kennel or a trainer's intake. In a shop, nobody may require any of it.
At the door, in the US
In a shop, a restaurant or a hotel, this is the sentence that matters:
What a business may ask →At the door · on your phone“A public accommodation shall not require documentation, such as proof that the animal has been certified, trained, or licensed as a service animal.”
One icon, for the moment someone says no.
Open At the door and it is already on screen: the federal rule, in the words of the regulation, with your dog’s record underneath it. One control hands it over. You turn the phone round and they read it. What the screen shows is the rule and your record. What happens next is still a conversation — under the ADA a business may still ask the two questions, and the screen does not answer them for you.
The photo, the name and the number, so whoever is reading knows which dog they are being told about.
The federal rule is already on the phone. Nothing loads, nothing times out, and a basement with no bars changes none of it.
Add it from your browser in two taps. There is no app to download and no store account to make.
Meet Scout. Ask it at the door.
You are standing outside a restaurant with your dog and someone is saying no. Open ServDog, ask Scout what to do, and get the answer for the setting you are in — what they may ask, what you can offer, and what to do if it still goes wrong.
A shop, a flight, or a taxi or a ride booked in an app: three settings, three different answers. Say which one you are in and Scout answers for that one. The federal rule is the same in all fifty states, and Scout will say where state law can add to it.
Every answer names the page it came from. If we haven’t verified it, Scout says so instead of guessing.
Signed in, Scout knows what your dog is registered as and what’s in its Taskbook, and answers for that dog.
Scout is for account holders. Registering is free and takes five minutes.
Who this is for
Three people we built it for. If you are one of them, the record earns its place the first week.
You trained your dog yourself
No school will ever vouch for you, so your own log is the only record that will exist. A log kept as the training happened is a contemporaneous record of the dog’s work; the same log typed up months later is a recollection. Neither one decides what a business may ask you, and in a shop no document may be required at all.
You are about to fill in an airline’s form
The Department of Transportation’s service-animal form asks about your dog’s health, behaviour and training, and it has to be current: completed on or after the day you bought the ticket (14 CFR § 382.75(a)). Arriving at that form with your dates and tasks written down is a different experience from arriving with an estimate. Our record is what you bring to them, not a substitute.
Your paperwork is everywhere
A document from your health professional in an email, the vet’s records at the vet, the trainer’s paperwork in a drawer. A rental viewing or a boarding desk is the worst place to find out you cannot find them.
The questions people arrive with
Do I need to register my service dog?
No. Under the ADA, registration as a service dog cannot be required, and no business open to the public and no state or local government office may make it a condition of letting you in.
Read the full answer →What can a business ask me?
Two questions, and nothing on paper. That is the rule for a business open to the public — a shop, a restaurant, a hotel, a clinic.
What a business may ask →Is a service dog certificate real?
As a piece of paper, yes. As a thing that gives you or your dog any right under the ADA, no — and we know of no other US law that gives one.
Read the full answer →Will an airline accept the card?
On a flight the rules are the Department of Transportation’s, not the ADA’s. An airline may require the government’s own form — “a current completed U.S. Department of Transportation Service Animal Air Transportation Form” (14 CFR § 382.75(a)) — and on a flight segment scheduled to take eight hours or more, a second one about relief (§ 382.75(b)). Ours is neither of those forms, and we will not tell you it is. The Department describes the first as attesting to “the animal’s health, behavior, and training”; what the record does is hold those answers in one place before you are at the counter filling them in.
Flying with a service dog in the US →Can my landlord refuse my dog?
Different law from the shop door — and a regulator that changed what it will enforce in 2026. For most rented homes, a landlord conversation about a dog runs on the Fair Housing Act.
Service dogs in housing →