[nagdu] Devil's advocate on ownership

Sun Apr 26 23:33:32 UTC 2009

Jenine,
    You raise some excellent points! I hope I can respond to most of them.
    First of all, the incident in which the man in Pennsylvania was, indeed, 
cited by Ron Haneline when i questioned Leader's change in the ownership 
policy. My question on this would be, "How long had this guy had his dog?" 
and "Was this his first dog?" It is my understanding that he had had his dog 
for more than two years and it was his second. I'm not sure if this is so or 
not, just hearsay!
    As the NFB representative to Southeastern Guide Dogs Graduate advisory 
Committee, I was the lone voice on the Council asking for the change in the 
ownership policy. The objections were raised about how to handle charges of 
abuse or neglect. Let me say that, to the best of my knowledge, there is no 
evidence to suggest that blind people are more likely to abuse an animal 
than the sighted public, contrary to the assertion by the Guide Horse 
Foundation and supported by a link to the National Institute on mental 
health (NIMH) that go nowhere! There are protections in place to deal with 
these issues and, I believe, these laws are adequate. I believe that the 
only way a guide dog school should be able to repossess a dog is if there is 
objective, third-party evidence of abuse.
    I would like to write more on this subject and am planning an article 
for the Braille Monitor concerning ownership policies. For now, I will let 
it rest at this and get ready for the NAGDU Board of Directors meeting.

Fraternally,
Marion


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jenine Stanley" <jeninems at wowway.com>
To: "'NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users'" 
<nagdu at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Sunday, April 26, 2009 3:35 PM
Subject: [nagdu] Devil's advocate on ownership


> Before I pose this question, or series of questions, let me say that I am
> very in favor of full ownership, if not for everyone directly upon
> graduation, very soon thereafter. I recall in the 1990's, a number of
> schools did change their policies to afford full ownership upon 
> graduation.
> I know GDF did so.
>
> That said, why have some schools changed their policies back to some type 
> of
> custody or arrangement by which the school has legal title to the dog and
> hence the ability to take the dog back without other entities being
> involved?
>
> I think things began to get a little tense, and I have no citations for
> this, just a gut feeling, when the man in Pennsylvania killed his guide 
> dog.
> Sorry, can't remember off the top of my head when that took place.
>
> Over the years, even Seeing eye has had some grads who have abused their
> dogs to the point that legal intervention was necessary. I would hope that
> no one sets out to abuse a dog. Many habitual abusers can fake it well
> enough to get through training and aftercare visits though. The man in
> Pennsylvania certainly did this. He had a host of other issues, as I'd 
> wager
> do most people who abuse their dogs to the point that the dog must be 
> taken
> away.
>
> This percentage of abusers is minuscule in terms of applicants and
> graduates, but who do you remember? The big question about the man who
> killed his dog, beyond how could someone do such a thing, was,  how did 
> this
> person get a dog to begin with?
>
> That's not really fair to Leader as he looked fine to them up until he
> killed the dog. In fact, an instructor did a home visit a month before the
> incident. Leader got a lot of bad press and questions, I'd wager, from 
> their
> donors and others over the incident though.
>
> Did they over react by changing their ownership policy? Professionally, 
> I'll
> reserve opinion on that one, but I fully understand their reasoning.
>
> It is disturbing to hear such revisions couched in language about
> "protecting the dogs." If I am that bad and the dog needs protection from
> me, why have I been accepted for training?
>
> That said, if you ran a guide dog school, how would you handle situations 
> in
> which you saw people abusing or neglecting dogs that they legally owned?
>
> Often the local animal cruelty laws have conditions well above what we 
> would
> consider cruel or neglectful for a working dog. This means that the animal
> control officers or courts often won't touch guide dog abuse allegations,
> even when they are legitimate.
>
> Let's face it. There are people for whom working and caring for a dog is 
> too
> much. There are people who may treat a dog the way they were treated as a
> child and that may not be kindly.
>
> What would you do if someone from the public called in a complaint about a
> grad?
>
> We all know that most complaints are simple misunderstandings or over
> reactions to appropriate corrections. There are that small percentage 
> though
> of complaints that are valid.
>
> How would you investigate such a complaint? What would you then do if you
> found that the dog was being abused or neglected?
>
> I often hear guide dog handlers say after publicized abuse events that the
> schools have the right to protect the dogs. See my opinion above on that
> one. <grin>
>
>>From a school's point of view, another dynamic is occurring that may cause
> policy changes. Many people are no longer accepting any dog and are
> returning or retiring dogs that are not suitable for them. Many of these
> dogs may truly need to retire from guide work for one reason or another.
> Some of them are just not good matches for that particular handler. Yet, 
> if
> the person owns the dog, he or she can do with it whatever he or she 
> wants.
> Some people choose to retire a dog who might be reevaluated and placed 
> with
> another person.
>
> How would you handle this situation, short of making better matches,
> something we all hope happens but something that can change for any team
> over time?
>
> Understand I'm not challenging anyone's position here, just posing 
> questions
> as to how you might handle things if you were on the other side of the 
> desk.
> Many of us have been in a class with people we questioned. Sometimes those
> people are changed by having a dog. Sometimes they sadly are not.
> Jenine Stanley
> jeninems at wowway.com
>
>
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