even if a comfort animal is a dog or a miniature horse, being a comfort animal is not the same as being a service animal. comfort animals make their owners feel better just by being there. a service animal is trained to recognize that there is a problem and do the job they were trained to do to help their owner. for example, a psychiatric service dog would recognize that its owner is feeling upset and do a specific job, like get medicine, get help, or distract the person, to help them.