[nagdu] Re Small Schools and Follow-up

[Elizabeth Rene]

Tracy, you have a valid point to raise when you question whether small 
schools have the resources to provide needed follow-up to their graduates. 
Especially in these recessionary times, money may be a factor in determining 
just how much help a small school can give to any graduate in a given 
situation.  Schools go through fat times and lean, and the small school 
could feel the bite of a financial downturn more keenly than a large and 
well-endowed school.

Assistance with veterinary costs for surgery, dentistry, and major medical 
care might depend on a school's financial ability to help, and upon the 
school's and graduate's mutual understanding of what it means to be granted 
ownership of one's guide dog.  Ownership does confer financial 
responsibility for a dog's care.  That said, providing a veterinary safety 
net might be one of the stellar selling points of the larger schools.  I 
understand that even the Seeing Eye helps with such costs, though the 
graduate owns his or her dog upon leaving the school.

But going to a smaller school doesn't rule out follow-up help with guidework 
issues, or even some emergency veterinary back-up.

When I got Wilson, my first GDA dog, an instructor came twice to Loma Linda, 
California, where I was a pediatric chaplaincy resident, to help Wilson 
overcome his fear of certain hospital wards, and to encourage him to cross a 
street on my route home that had an actively-emitting steam vent.

Later, at seminary in Austin, Texas, a GDA instructor came to help Wilson 
figure out a particularly tricky but necessary route.

Still later, at the Koinonia community near Americus, Georgia, Wilson was 
bitten by a Brown Recluse spider, and had weeks of veterinary treatment to 
overcome the necrotic infection that kind of bite causes.  I had to stay in 
Georgia two months longer than planned, because Wilson was too weak to 
travel.  Though I owned Wilson and was responsible for his care, GDA kicked 
in two hundred dollars to defray my expenses.

I should remember, too, that Wilson and I were hit by a car on his 
graduation night in Berkeley.  A UCB student made a California stop and 
clipped us just as we were heading into the last lane of the intersection, 
right in front of my instructor and half a dozen friends.  I was badly 
bruised, but not substantially hurt.  Wilson grazed a paw.  The instructor 
stayed with Wilson and me in Berkeley for two more weeks, and the training 
director came up too, to make sure that we were all right, that Wilson 
wasn't traumatized, and that the two of us could withstand numerous traffic 
checks without freezing or bolting.  I owe the strength and viability of my 
bond to Wilson to the tireless efforts of GDA to make sure that we 
succeeded.

Elizabeth