Emotional Support Animals

When I was first diagnosed I thought about getting a service dog. At the time, it sounded nice to have a dog that would be able to wake me up in the mornings and wake me if I started to doze off.

Having a companion who could help me out in class and keep me on top of staying awake sounded great.

The financial reality of getting a service dog for idiopathic hypersomnia

Then I found out how expensive service dogs are. On the low end was $10,000 and the high end being $20,000 for a fully trained service dog.

There are companies that train service dogs for people are super expensive and even then most really only train for mobility or for sight dogs. I also thought about how I would have to take care of a service dog as well.

I felt I did ok taking care of my mother's dogs when I lived with her as a kid. Personally though I hated taking the dogs for a walk especially when I had to wake up to take the dogs out in the cold.

Legal limits and training obstacles with IH service animals

From there I thought maybe I don't need to get a service dog, maybe I could get a different animal to help out with my IH.

Then I found out only dogs and ponies are legally able to be service animals in the USA so I gave up on that idea. The only other option was to get a dog myself and then train it to be my service dog.

Which was the cheaper option but would take a lot more work and had more risk of the dog being unfit for being a service dog or washing out.

I decided to pass on that idea since I didn't have the extra energy to spend on training a dog. It did suck to realize that a service dog would be helpful for me but I was too poor to be able to afford one.

Choosing emotional support cats over an IH service dog

Even though I gave up on the service dog idea I ended up getting 2 cats as emotional support animals instead.

I had to have my psychiatrist sign off on them being my emotional support animals.

Emotional support animals don't have the same legal status as service animals so I can't take them to businesses or anything but they're still helpful in their own way!

Cats unlike dogs don't have to be walked everyday which was a plus for me. Taking care of them helps me get out of bed in the morning and cleaning the litterbox hasn't been as hard as I thought it would be.

Although, I have considered becoming one of the cat stroller walkers during the summer.

The benefits of low-energy companionship for idiopathic hypersomnia (IH)

Having my cats as emotional support animals have really helped me in similar ways to a service animal.

When I'm feeling sad I can see if my cats want to be pet or play which is a great serotonin boost! They also take naps with me so I have sleeping buddies now.

Cats actually sleep around 12 and 16 hours a day which is longer than how much sleep I get as someone with IH! Getting emotional support animals have been a real help but I definitely recommend pets in general for those who have the bandwidth.