Pet Policy
While we know that pets are family, we ask that you do not bring your pets to the farm unless they service animals as defined by the ADA.
If your dog is a service animal as defined by the ADA, restrictions will apply:
- Produce handling areas used for washing, packing, and storage (e.i., U-Pick fields, all production fields).
- Livestock areas, where natural predator/prey relationships that can upset farm animals or potentially be a source of disease transmission (e.i. the Barnyard Petting Zoo).
There are several factors why we abide by this policy, including: GAP regulations, the safety of your animals, the safety of our own farm animals, and the safety of our patrons.
To determine if an animal is a service animal, we may ask two questions:
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Is this animal required because of a disability?
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What work or task has this animal been trained to perform?
Service animals are defined as dogs that are individually trained to do work or perform tasks for people with disabilities. Examples of such work or tasks include guiding people who are blind, alerting people who are deaf, pulling a wheelchair, alerting and protecting a person who is having a seizure, reminding a person with mental illness to take prescribed medications, calming a person with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) during an anxiety attack, or performing other duties. Service animals are working animals, not pets. The work or task a dog has been trained to provide must be directly related to the person’s disability. Dogs whose sole function is to provide comfort or emotional support do not qualify as service animals under the ADA.
The work or tasks performed by a service animal must be directly related to the individual’s disability.
We may ask an individual with a disability to remove a service animal if the animal is not housebroken or is out of control and the individual is not able to control it. A service animal must have a harness, leash or other tether, unless the handler is unable to use a tether because of a disability or the use of a tether would interfere with the service animal’s ability to safely perform its work or tasks. In these cases, the service animal must be under the handler’s control through voice commands, hand signals, or other effective means. If a service animal is excluded, the individual with a disability must still be offered the opportunity to obtain goods, services, and accommodations without having the service animal on the premises.
