[nagdu] The Truth About Guide Dog Awareness Month

[Marion & Martin]

Dear All,
    Several messages have been circulated about "Guide Dog Awareness Month", so I wanted to share some facts. This information was shared with me by the Executive Director of one of the major schools who spoke to me with the condition of anonimity. Furthermore, Petco contacted me about this project and, once they found out that we were a consumer organization that did education and advocacy, were no longer interested in including us in their project. Read on and you will learn why!
    Petco has contacted each of the guide dog schools to ask them to participate. What is participation? In exchange for endorsing Natural Balance dog food, allowing natural Balance to use the names of the schools to show that "the best of the best eat natural Balance", agreeing to feed it to all of their dogs, and recommending that all of their graduates do the same, Natural Balance and Petco would make a donation of a portion of their proceeds during the month of May to that school. 
    Most of the schools have refused their offer. In the words of the person who shared this with me, "The name of our school is not for sale!" the schools feed what they believe to be the best product for their dogs, not the cheapest and definitely not the one who agrees to give them money in exchange for the use of their names in order to market their product as "The best food for guide dogs!"
    So why did the representative from Petco abruptly end his call to me? Was it because we don't have a valuable mission worth supporting? Was it because we put our focus on the user, not the dog? Was it because we weren't big enough to have any influence over sales? Was it because we are blind ourselves and, in true stereotypical thinking, have no influence? (Blindness means "ignorant", you know!) Perhaps the phrase "consumer organization" turned him away because we would see through the sham!
    In any case, the blind who actually use the dogs will not get a red cent of the hundreds of thousands of dollars Petco told me they would raise as the result of "Guide Dog Awareness Month". neither will most of the major guide dog schools in the United States, unwilling to compromise their integrity by endorsing a product. And, I ask, what does natural Balance, Petco, and paula Abdul know about guide dogs that makes them the experts to raise awareness about them? It seems Guide Dog Awareness Month is nothing more than a marketing ploy to sell dog food!

Fraternally yours,
Marion Gwizdala