Emotional Support Animals for Anxiety & Depression


What are Some Common Symptoms of Anxiety & Depression?
Anxiety and depression are common mental health conditions affecting millions of people worldwide. Anxiety can involve the following:
- Excessive worry
- Restlessness
- Physical symptoms like a racing heart
Depression symptoms include:
- Persistent sadness
- Loss of interest in activities
- Changes in appetite or sleep
If you suspect you have anxiety or depression, it’s essential to consult a licensed mental health professional for a proper diagnosis and treatment plan.


What are Some Coping Methods for Anxiety & Depression?
Common ways to cope with anxiety and depression include:
- Therapy
- Medication
- Lifestyle changes such as regular exercise and mindfulness practices
- Assistance animalsAnimals
Animals can play a vital role in managing mental health. Emotional support animals (ESAs) and psychiatric service dogs provide companionship and emotional stability, helping to reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression. While psychiatric service dogs require special training, emotional support animals do not, making them a more accessible form of support for your mental health.
Emotional support animals (ESAs) offer numerous benefits for those with anxiety and depression. They provide comfort, support, and unconditional love, helping to alleviate symptoms. ESAs encourage a daily routine, which can enhance mental well-being. Their presence can significantly reduce feelings of loneliness and anxiety, making it easier to cope with the challenges of anxiety and depression.
Can You Get an Emotional Support Animal for Anxiety & Depression?
Yes, anxiety and depression are mental health conditions that qualify for an emotional support animal. To obtain an ESA, you must consult with a licensed clinician who can confirm that an emotional support animal will benefit your mental health. This evaluation is crucial to ensure that you receive the appropriate support for your condition.
Find Out If You Qualify

How Can I Get an Emotional Support Animal for Anxiety & Depression?
To get an emotional support animal (ESA) for anxiety and depression, start by confirming that you have a qualifying mental health condition, such as anxiety or depression, and that having a pet helps alleviate some of your symptoms. Next, consult with a licensed mental health professional (LMHP) who can assess your needs and provide an ESA letter, which officially designates your pet as an emotional support animal. This letter is essential as it serves as the legal documentation required for your ESA. By obtaining your ESA letter through Pettable, you can benefit from a straightforward, legitimate process backed by a money-back guarantee.
Find Out If You QualifyAn ESA Letter is an essential document that makes your pet an official emotional support animal. With an ESA letter you can live anywhere with your pet, and are exempt from pet rent, fees, or restrictions. Pettable makes getting an ESA letter simple, heres how it works:



Frequently Asked Questions
An emotional support animal provides comfort to help relieve a symptom or effect related to a person's disability. Also, there is no animal or breed restrictions for ESA's as long as it is reasonable and justified.
Note that being an emotional support animal is not the same as being a service animal (like seeing-eye dogs). These types of animals have stricter criteria that must be met, including different forms of training such as obedience, public access and disability training. These additional trainings are necessary since service dogs have public access and travel rights, unlike emotional support animals who are only protected under housing rights.
ESA's do not have public access or travel rights, so it's best to check with individual business guidelines to see if they allow ESA's. Additionally, you can train your dog to become a PSD (psychiatric service dog) in order to have public access and travel rights.
The general criteria is to have some emotional or psychological condition that is improved by having an animal that provides support. Conditions may include depression, generalized anxiety, paranoia, insomnia, and others. And remember, Emotional Support Animals do not require special training!
Only a licensed mental health professional is qualified to determine if you meet the criteria. Through our service, you can speak directly with a qualified mental health professional in the state where you reside. Pettable connects you with a licensed mental health professional for a consultation to determine if you qualify for an ESA. Unlike, some less legitimate services, we do not provide letters for fee, but instead we connect you to a professional for an honest evaluation.
Step 1: Once payment is submitted and your appointment is scheduled through our website, you will receive an email to activate your account.
Step 2: Once your account is activated, the process will prompt you to fill out the required forms to give more information to your clinician before your scheduled appointment.
Step 3: Your assigned clinician will call you at your scheduled appointment time and will let you know if you have qualified. If you've qualified, your clinician will upload your letter in your portal for you to view and print.
If for any reason you are not approved we will refund your entire purchase.
Get your official ESA Letter
When you take our quiz we collect information to match you with a therapist that has experience with your case and can meet your specific needs.
Additionally, to our knowledge, Pettable is the only provider that offers a full Money Back Guarantee - meaning if you do not qualify for a letter after your consultation or your landlord does not accept it after filing a complaint with the HUD, then we’ll refund 100% of your purchase.
We have experience with every kind of ESA situation - multiple pets, breed restrictions, weight/size restrictions, traveling across state lines, immediate turnaround, etc. We are confident we can help you with your specific ESA needs and if we can't, we will refund your money 100%. See our Money Back Guarantee FAQ for more information.
We employ a vetted network of licensed and qualified mental health professionals who possess the credentials necessary to write a certified ESA Letter.
Our website is also HIPAA Compliant, ensuring that your information is protected according to nationally mandated federal law.
Phone Consultation - Our professionals will reach out to you to setup a phone consultation and establish a relationship.This gives our professionals the authority and basis for prescribing you an ESA letter.
Compliant Letters - The ESA Letter is issued directly from a LMHP with their license number and their contact information included. The letter will come on the professional letterhead of the Licensed Mental Health Professional and contain everything legally required for an ESA prescription within the body of the letter.
No problem, we've got your back!
Our mental health professionals and customer support team here at Pettable are available to get on a call with your landlord should they want to validate the legitimacy of your letter.
Should your landlord request a validation of your letter, please have them reach out to your therapist using the contact information on your ESA letter.
In the unlikely event that your letter does not work as intended and we've tried to make it work with the landlord we will refund your purchase 100%.
We can turn around an ESA letter in as fast as 24 hours! If you need it this quickly make sure to choose our "Express Service." You can select this option at checkout.
To ensure the fastest turn around possible, it is important that you sign and submit our consent forms.
We have an extensive network of mental health professionals, licensed across states, with wide range of availability and can route you to someone that is able to meet your timeline needs.
Once a consultation is concluded, letters are turned around within 24 hours and most of the time much more quickly than that.
After speaking with a licensed mental health professional and receiving your own ESA Letter, all you need to do is designate which animal will be your specific emotional support animal. It can be any breed or species, whether an existing pet or a new pet you adopt or rescue. You do not need to go to any specific breeder or place to acquire one.
Absolutely! There is research and data that support the theory that animals provide substantial and measurable emotional support. If you're thinking about the benefits of an emotional support animal, you can learn more by researching online or talking to qualified mental health professionals in our network.
Our ESA letters contain the following:
- The official letterhead of the mental health professional.
- Their business, contact information, and signature.
- Their license information which allows anyone to check the status of their license.
- Their confirmation that you meet the definition of a disability and recommendation for an emotional support animal.
The Fair Housing Act requires housing providers such as landlords or management companies to allow the possession of animals that work, provide assistance for, or perform tasks that benefit individuals with qualified medical disabilities – or that provide emotional support to individuals to reduce a symptom or effect of a disability.
The Fair Housing Act also requires individuals, who wish to possess a service or support animal, to follow specific criteria relevant to the type of support needed.
For an emotional support animal, the individual has to speak with a licensed mental health professional in the state they reside and receive a prescription of an ESA Letter in order to qualify.
Although the Fair Housing Act and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development does not specify guidance around the issue of ESA letter expiration, we recommend that you renew your ESA letter annually for a few reasons:
- Landlords or property managers may refuse to accept an ESA letter that is expired. Renewing your letter enables you to provide current documentation that verifies your need for an emotional support animal as still relevant.
- Clinicians may not validate an ESA letter that is expired in the event a landlord or property manager reaches out to verify. An annual consultation with a clinician to discuss your needs for an ESA letter is advised in order to keep licensed professional recommendations current.
Renewing your letter is easy through our seamless consultation process.
Federal and state laws require a live consultation over the phone, video, or in person to properly vet and qualify an individual to warrant an ESA Letter.
To ensure our ESA letter are compliant, all of our consultations are conducted live over the phone in order to meet the legal standards set forth and assure the validity of your letter.
Yes. Federal and state laws require a live consultation over the phone, video, or in person to properly vet and qualify an individual to warrant an ESA Letter. Since the letter grants privileges about keeping a pet in a place that otherwise would not allow it, base guidelines must be met to qualify.
Yes. An emotional support animal can be any breed or species as long as it supports an emotional or psychological condition.
Since emotional support animals do not require any training, your childhood pet or newly adopted animal can qualify.
Yes, you can register multiple pets on the same ESA letter. At Pettable we can accommodate up to two pets per letter for no additional charge.
According to the American Disabilities Act your request for multiple animals must be "reasonable".
An example of an unreasonable request is if you want four great danes registered as ESAs and you live in a tiny apartment.
In order to make sure we're meeting the standard of "reasonable" Pettable is able to accommodate up to two pets per letter as long as you meet the criteria to warrant an ESA letter.
At the end of the day it is a judgement call but we want to make sure that you are covered in any situation you're in, which is why we've set this policy.
Once you have a proper ESA Letter, your landlord is required by the Fair Housing Act to allow you to keep your designated emotional support animal with you at your place of residence.
Sometimes landlords create barriers for individuals in attempt to refrain from accommodating legitimate ESA's. If this occurs please reach out to your assigned mental health professional to validate or assist in verifying your legitimate ESA letter.
The most common type of fraud we've seen are in particular sites that claim to certify service animals (different from emotional support animals) without requiring any formal testing or accreditation typical for that process. The US has cracked down on these forms of fraud. Now they will enact hefty fines – or even jail time – for caught offenders.
These are the clues you should be on the lookout for to spot a scam: The service does NOT require you to speak with someone live over the phone – All legitimate ESA Letter providers are required by law to ensure that you speak with a licensed mental health professional over the phone or video. If a service asks you to answer questions using a quiz or "exam" but doesn't ask you to schedule a live consultation afterwards, it is probably a scam. Pettable is not a purchase-diagnosis website, but instead refers you to a licensed professional who conducts a live evaluation and provides a legitimate ESA letter per their professional discretion.