[nagdu] GDF's ownership policy

Tamara Smith-Kinney tamara.8024 at comcast.net
Fri Feb 27 22:35:14 UTC 2009


Jenine,

Hey, thanks!  That's very interesting, and it adds a whole new perspective
on the program side of the issue.

Tami Smith-Kinney

-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf
Of Jenine Stanley
Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 9:04 AM
To: 'NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users'
Subject: [nagdu] GDF's ownership policy

Granted this is from a staff member who is also a GDF grad and who was on
the board of directors when the ownership policy was changed several times
over the past 5 years, but here it is. 

Ownership of your GDf dog upon graduation is available for most grads. I say
most because there are some special circumstances under which people may be
given custody with the understanding that when certain goals are met or
milestones passed, they may apply for and receive ownership. I'll go into
those later. 

Legal ownership of your dog anywhere entitles you to determine what happens
to that dog upon retirement. For GDf grads this isn't such a big deal as
we've generally allowed the grad to dictate what happens anyway, but for
some programs it is a big deal. If the dog is young upon retirement, we do
ask that you consider returning it to us for evaluation for possible reissue
or a career change, but we can't demand that if you have ownership.

Legal ownership also has some, well, legal ramifications should your dog be
attacked or injured in any way and you seek coverage of damages. 

I'm not a lawyer. I don't even play one on TV. I do understand though that
there have been cases in which a guide dog school owned a dog legally and
when it was injured by a car, the school refused to seek coverage of damages
due to possible bad PR as the accident was questionable in their opinion.
This took place back in the mid '90's when many schools were changing their
ownership policies to full legal ownership upon graduation. 

Now many state laws regarding harming a service animal have provisions for
the handler, not necessarily the legal owner, to seek restitution and also
for the school to seek restitution for any costs associated with retraining
or providing a new dog. This makes it less important that you own your dog
from the legal restitution standpoint. 

In my own mind as a handler, it's a mark of trust and something that must be
taken very seriusly. It's not something to demand. It's something to earn,
through training and demonstrating your responsible ability to handle and
work a dog, provide for its needs and interact with people regarding it. To
me it's a huge honor to be seen as able to do this, not because I'm a poor
blind person, but because working with a dog in the role of guide is hard.
It's not something everyone can do. It's like training with a police or
military dog. You learn and earn the right to work with that dog. You
hopefully acquire a level of skill regarding dogs in general that most
people simply do not have. 

Now we could argue whether this is demonstrated by all guide dog handlers,
but it's how I view ownership. 

So, why would someone opt for custody instead of ownership from GDF? Custody
is an option upon graduation for most people. We've made some changes so I'd
have to look at exactly how long the custody period is, 2 years or 18
months. Sorry, caught myself off guard on that one. <grin> 

People who do opt for custody have said such things as: 

"I wanted the school to be able to take the dog back if it wasn't working. I
might get too attached and not make a good decision for me or the dog." 

That's the most common reason I hear. In fact, it's the only one I can
recall off hand. 

You receive the same services at the same cost, free, whether you own the
dog or have custody. 

People who have delayed ownership are usually people in some very specific
categories. 

1. People who have had questionable experiences in the past, either having
dogs removed, by GDF or other programs, or having a reputation as such. We
want to monitor these people and generally do, keeping in touch with them
during the period. Such people are told, privately, that this will be a
condition of training, delayed ownership, and it is their choice to
continue. We want them to succeed. We want to give them as much support as
it takes to do so but given a possible history of whatever, we want to be
able to reclaim the dog if the person does not meet the agreed upon
expectations. 

2. Special Needs dogs with very involved training. It takes twice as long to
train a dog for guiding someone who uses a wheelchair, in our program
anyway. Other types of special needs, such as some of our service dogs, who
are chosen from the pool of dogs who do not end up as guides, may have a lot
of training for a wide range of behaviors. 

If the handler does not find that he or she can work with the dog after all,
has a health crisis that finds him/her unable to work the dog for a long
period right after training, etc. we want to be able to take that dog back
and either continue its training for placement back with the person, or
train it and a new handler. 

There have been situations in which the person owned such a dog and would
not give it back to the school upon it being unable to work with that
person. Whew, diplomacy makes for some odd sentences. <grin> 

The dog in that case was eventually returned and has been retrained with
another person and is working well. The original handler, after working out
some health issues, has another dog that suits him/her better and is also
quite happy. 

So, that's ownership, custody and delayed ownership at GDF from the staff/
policy end. 

I was one of the people who fought very hard to get GDF to change to an
ownership upon graduation policy. I realize that there have been some events
in the guide dog world, and we all know of some people, that might cause
schools to relinquish their ownership agreements or modify them so much that
they no longer are true ownership agreements. Some of these decisions we may
concur with based on our desire as well to see dogs protected. 

I used to think that better screening of applicants would avoid the problem
of irresponsible dog handlers later on who really should have their dogs
removed. That may be true for a very small percentage of people but things
happen and even the man who killed his guide dog several years ago looked
great during class and even during a home visit a month before the incident.
The sins of one aren't the sins of the many in this case. 

Hope that helped to flesh out this issue. 
 Jenine Stanley
jeninems at wowway.com


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