[nagdu] Certification?

[Julie J.]

We have had the certification discussion quite a few times.   there are lots 
of different opinions on the topic.  Here's mine.

certification will not solve the underlying issues.  Certification only 
ensures that the animal was properly trained and behaved on the day of 
testing.  It does not ensure that the owner/handler will keep up with 
reinforcing that training.  It does not ensure that the dog or handler will 
have a bad day and something unpleasant will happen.  It doesn't ensure that 
the dog will behave in all situations all the time, only under the 
circumstances of the test.

Certification will cost money.   We are guaranteed civil rights that state 
that we are not to be charged additional taxes, fees or surcharges because 
of our disabilities.  If certification were to be implemented it would have 
to be free to the disabled individual.  The tester would have to travel to 
the location of the animal to be certified or travel expenses, reimbursement 
for lost work time and incidental expenses for the disabled individual and 
animal would have to be paid.  this means more taxes.  That doesn't make me 
very excited.

In order for the certification process to be fair to all parties involved, 
it would have to be done by an independent third party.  this would most 
likely mean a government entity that does not currently exist.   This would 
mean the creation of a government agency, training of the staff, and a huge 
budget to pay for all those expenses.   Just like other product manufactures 
have to have third party independent agencies approve, inspect or test their 
products, it should be the same for guide dogs if certification is truly 
going to work.

Due to the wide variety of disabilities and the wide variety of tasks that 
these dogs do, creating some sort of single certification protocol is going 
to be very difficult.     I do not particularly like the idea of being 
limited in what or how I choose to mitigate my disability.   I'm not sure 
how certification  could work without putting some sort of expectations on 
specific things the dog does.

In regard to owner training and being in a situation that required 
certification...I do train my own guides and, no, I have never been in a 
situation that required certification.  There isn't one in the United 
States.   I have never been asked to show any sort of documentation for my 
dog.  I believe this is because she was well trained and behaved herself 
appropriately.   I have flown on airplanes with her, been in restaurants, 
many stores and other places where dogs are not normally allowed.  the 
presence of the harness, her behavior, my confident demeanor and my verbal 
assurances that I am blind and she is a guide dog are all that was ever 
needed.

Now on to the question of people passing pets as service animals...Yes, it 
does happen, more than I'd like to admit.  I don't think certification will 
help though.  the simple reason is that if people are going to commit 
criminal offenses they are going to commit criminal offenses.  Little things 
like laws or certification requirements are not going to stop them. 
business owners don't know the law now.  I don't think adding another law is 
going to increase their knowledge of service animals.

I do think if we had stronger laws with clear consequences of representing 
yourself as disabled when you are not or disrupting the normal flow of 
business by the poor behavior of a service dog, that it would make a 
difference.   I have no idea about how to go about creating laws to weed out 
the frauds without infringing on the privacy of actual disabled people.  the 
second issue is much easier.  It would be fairly easy to create laws that 
give businesses more power to have poorly behaved service animals removed 
from the premises.  Actually that provision already exists in the law.  It 
would just need to be expanded and given consequences like a fine.

of course all this is JMO and worth the paper its written on. *smile*
Julie