[nagdu] Devil's advocate on ownership

Tue Apr 28 19:16:04 UTC 2009

Rebecca,

Good questions, all.  I've been reading the thread with great interest and
scratching my head over the inherent dilemma:  How could any given school
better weed out the abusers and other "bad" candidates without making
blanket rules that affect the rest?  Do they send everyone for a thorough,
security clearance style psychiatric examination?  Or conduct a thorough
background check, as you suggest.  What about the cost-benefit aspect of all
that?

I have not come up with any answers that don't have long lists of cons to
counteract the pros.  It is very interesting to think about, though.  What
would I do?  To be honest, I'm the sort of person who would cheerfully
perform psychiatric evals, background checks, surveillance, the full work up
before I would give my best friend a kitten, if only I had the means to do
all that.  /smile/  Note:  that's exaggeration!

Tami Smith-Kinney

-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf
Of Pickrell, Rebecca M (IS)
Sent: Tuesday, April 28, 2009 7:29 AM
To: NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users
Subject: Re: [nagdu] Devil's advocate on ownership

Perhaps one of the flaws with references is that people wishing to
obtain a dog select their references. As far as I know, if Angie asked
me to be a reference for her to get a dog, the school, any school would
not say "Rebecca, we know Angie selected you, so we can ssume you're in
favor of her getting a dog, can you select a person Angie may know whom
she did not choose, so we can get what may be an unbaised oppinion"? 
Finally, and this is just food for thought, how would people feel about
a guide dog school interiviewing neighbors and people we associated with
to determine one's fitness for obtaining a dog? 
If schools automatically gave ownership of said dogs to grads, but the
price was that people not of the applicant's suggestion were
interviewed, would this change how we felt about oownership? What if the
schools were totally transparent, so all whom applied knew of the
process? 
I'm curious to know what the list has to say on this. 

-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Angie Matney
Sent: Sunday, April 26, 2009 6:16 PM
To: 'NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users'
Subject: Re: [nagdu] Devil's advocate on ownership

Hi Jenine,

Excellent post. I certainly don't presume to know how I'd handle things
if I were responsible for a guide-dog school. The reason I think
ownership upon graduation is the best way to go partly has to do with a
cost-benefit analysis. In his interview, Marion mentioned that some
people are less likely to seek help with problems if they are afraid the
dog will be taken away. Since these people are making a choice to keep
quiet about difficulties, we probably have no idea how many such people
there are. But clearly this is a recipe for disaster. I would argue that
the abuse of a few dogs is, regrettably, a necessary "cost" to guide-dog
mobility. 

That probably made me sound heartless. I doo think that all appropriate
measures should be taken to minimize these incidents, but nothing will
ever completely eliminate them. The incident with the Leader Dog
happened around the time I got Glaze. I also applied to Leader back
then, and Leader asked me for six references. So this man from PA was
probably able to find six people who could vouch for him, six people who
were willing to say, in writing, that he was a good candidate for a
guide dog.

I think the problem of people not returning dogs when they don't work
out is similarly an unavoidable cost of guide-dog mobility. Maybe the
schools could find ways to really emphasize the worth of these dogs and
to encourage grads (without coercion) that returning a mismatched dog is
in the best interests of all concerned. (On the other hand, I do think
there are some instances when a grad is in a better position to judge
whether or not a dog should be re-evaluated. But that's a whole nother
kettle o' fish, and I ain't touching it tonight.)

In this country, there are thousands of fatalities from automobile
accidents each year; yet we continue to allow cars to be on the road
because the cost-benefit analysis weighs in favor of maintaining the
system. We pass laws to minimize traffic accidents, but we recognize
that some people are going to be killed each year, no matter what we do.
I guess I view ownership in the same way. If providing ownership at
graduation would make it more likely for struggling handlers to seek
help, then it is probably worth doing, even with its associated "costs."
I'm sure the schools do conduct some form of cost-benefit analysis, even
if they don't couch it in those terms. 

Again, great post. 

Angie

-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Jenine Stanley
Sent: Sunday, April 26, 2009 3:35 PM
To: 'NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users'
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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