Dogs at Cedar Lodge, and what a service animal is owed

Our pet policy, stated plainly

Dogs and cats, two per booking. In a motel room or the house, $20 per pet per night, capped at $60 for the whole stay, whichever is shorter. On an RV site, free. No weight limit and no breed restrictions: we run this on a behavior standard instead. Pets must be leashed outside your room or RV, never left unattended, and cleaned up after. Any animal that is aggressive or barks persistently will be asked to leave. The full policy, alongside our other five house rules, is on rates and policies.

Service animals: free, everywhere, no exceptions

A service animal is welcome in every room and on every site at no charge. It is not subject to our pet fee, our two pet limit, or any other pet rule on this page, and we do not restrict it to particular rooms. This is not a courtesy we extend. It is what the law actually requires of us.

Federal regulation, 28 CFR 36.302, defines a service animal as a dog individually trained to do work or perform a task for a person with a disability, and it is explicit that we may not require identification, certification, or proof of training, and may not charge a surcharge of any kind because of the animal, even where we would otherwise charge a pet fee. That last part is the one that trips lodging businesses up most often: a nightly pet fee, a refundable deposit, or a cleaning charge tacked on at checkout all count as a surcharge if applied to a service animal, and all are prohibited.

Why we do not ask, and what it costs a business that does

California layers its own protection on top of the federal rule through the Unruh Civil Rights Act. Civil Code section 52 sets statutory damages of $4,000 per offense, plus attorney fees, for a violation, and Munson versus Del Taco, decided by the California Supreme Court, removed any requirement to prove the business meant to discriminate. A front desk that simply follows a standard pet policy against a service animal handler, with no bad intent at all, has still committed the violation.

That is the whole reason this page exists rather than one sentence on the pet policy page. We would rather explain the law once, clearly, than have a guest arrive and find out at the counter that we did not understand it.

Emotional support animals are different, and that matters here

Emotional support, comfort, and companion animals are not service animals under either the federal or the California definition, because they are not trained to perform a specific task for a disability. We book them as pets, under our ordinary pet policy above, and that is consistent with both laws, not a workaround of them.

Guests remain responsible for any damage their animal causes, service animal or pet alike. That is the one thing both categories share.

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