[nagdu] A disaster of an SD program here in Kansas

[Gail]

Hello! 
 
Just got a call from my new IL caseworker, who wants to come tomorrow to do
the usual yearly onceover. When I asked if she had found any O&M instructor
for me (I had called there a couple weeks ago, asking if they could help,
and thought this was a response), she goes, 'oh, I know a wonderful program
where you can get a guide dog in just a week or so!' My jaw dropped....there
is only one reputable program in Kansas, and I knew it wasnt in Concordia.
After I got off the phone, I looked up CARES http://www.caresks.com/index
htm  and I was right. OMG, I wish I wasnt.... 
 
 
I've known about this disaster since the time the SD laws were changed here
in KS. The owner of this program raised a stink to get a new definition put
in-"Professional Therapy Dog", and despite what you see on their site, these
people *do not* know how to train either dogs or people. For years I've had
their 'graduates' besiege me when I was out with my own service dogs,
pleading for help. You see, CARES 'Professional Therapy Dog" is no more than
a pound pup, with no temperament testing, no task training, and absolute
minimum of obedience basics, that they hand out to kids with problems like
autism. The training the handler gets is only for the Public Access Test,
and only a week or so at that, max. By law, a TD is supposed to be handled
by an adult trainer, for the benefit of others. If it is working for one
person, it is no longer a TD, but some kind of halfbaked SD at best. One of
the Board of Directors is a person who was thrown out and banned for life by
the American Kennel Club, for abuse of her dogs. The owner and head of CARES
is a person I spoke to several times at the time of the hearings, who was
trying to pump me for info on how to train dogs! Several members of my own
SD group got dogs from there, and all returned the dogs, and trained their
own, because the dogs were problems from the start, with no task training
whatsoever. 
 
 
I was shocked when my caseworker told me so cheeirly, "oh, we can get you a
guide dog from Concordia! I have a blind gentleman who is in a wheelchair,
who has a dog from there. And you dont need to bother with a cane, to get a
dog from there." Yeah, uh huh. I look at the site....no where have I found
that they even list training guides...but they sure train for a lot of other
junk, supposedly even bomb and narc dogs. 
 
 
Guess I'm going to be doing a lot of reeducating of this caseworker tomorrow
....d***, I had hoped that place had gone belly up years go, and here it
still is. 
 
I'm hotter about this than the weather outside, I can tell you! 
 
Gail