[nagdu] Guide Dog Handler Bill of Rights

Jordan Gallacher jgallacher1987 at gmail.com
Mon Jan 31 17:18:49 UTC 2011


Peter,
It is the school's right as a business to set their own policies on
ownership.  That part will not get far at all.  Since my 1st dog was
repossessed by tSE for no reason what so ever, I do agree that some schools
have a too long of ownership policy, but there is little that can be done
about that.  The other issues you have mentioned are something to work on.
Jordan

-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf
Of Peter Donahue
Sent: Monday, January 31, 2011 10:23 AM
To: NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users
Subject: Re: [nagdu] Guide Dog Handler Bill of Rights

Hello everyone,

    There are local entities who can take action in such situations. They go

by various names including American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to

Animals, (ASPCA), the Humane Society, Animal Rescue League, Animal Care and 
Control Services, etc. In San Antonio it's called Animal Care Services. 
Among other things it's their job to enforce anty cruelty regulations and 
can be on the scene to investigate alleged cruelty far more effectively than

a guide dog program located across the country. Enforcement of such laws 
should be left to such entities not a guide dog program. SE has demonstrated

that it can work with local humane organizations to retrieve dogs that have 
been abused or neglected by their owners. Our other guide dog programs can 
do the same. They would be required to do so under the legislation I'm 
invisioning to protect graduates from the enforcement of double standards 
heaped on the blind and the kind of wrongful repozession of dogs by some 
guide dog programs. People if we allow the schools to retain ownership for 
any period of time upon completion of training we leave ourselves volnurable

to receiving such treatment by guide dog programs. Immediate ownership of 
guide dogs upon successful complletion of training will protect teams from 
this kind of treatment. If we believe that retention of ownership of a dog 
by a school is a good thing we're only asking for more trouble. This needs 
to stop!

Peter Donahue


From: "Nicole B. Torcolini at Home" <ntorcolini at wavecable.com>
To: "NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users" 
<nagdu at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Sunday, January 30, 2011 11:32 PM
Subject: Re: [nagdu] Guide Dog Handler Bill of Rights


Okay...I am going to give my opinions on these things. They are only my
opinions and are by no means supposed to be correct.

I have mixed feelings about the ownership debate. I definitely agree that
more than a year is too long. Regardless of whether or not you own the dog
immediately, there are a few things that need to be considered. These dogs
are not a dime a dozen. If you get home with your dog and after a little
while find that it just is not working for you, I would return the dog
rather than retiring it as retiring it would be a waste of dog. Please do
not take this to mean that I don't think that people become attached to
their dogs almost immediately. It would be a very hard thing for me to do if
I had the choice, but you have to consider how much it takes to train these
dogs.

It is true that things might be more likely to go wrong during the first
year, but, regardless of ownership policy or how long a person has had his
or her dog, I think that there should be a universal policy for taking back
the dog. The two conditions under which a dog should be removed without
investigation are if the dog has become so dangerous/aggressive that he/she
is a threat to other people and dogs at almost all times or the user has
neglected or abused the dog so much that the dog might suffer permanent
health problems. In such cases, it is not the school but rather the local
animal control that should take action, for these are conditions that I
think that all dog owners, service dog or not, should be subject to.

The issue of guide dogs being "not used" is definitely a hard one. In my
opinion, you could say that a guide dog is not being used if it has
forgotten most/all of its commands. Also, if other members of the household
(if there are others) have started taking care of it more than you for no
particular reason (there are reasons that for a period of time other people
might need to care for your dog) this might be an area of concern. However,
to put a quantitative number on how often a dog should be worked or some
other set criteria is too strict.

Nicole

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Cindy Ray" <cindyray at gmail.com>
To: "NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users"
<nagdu at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Sunday, January 30, 2011 8:00 PM
Subject: Re: [nagdu] Guide Dog Handler Bill of Rights


> At Blind, Inc. you are there for several months and you are learning
> blindness skills, which include travel with the cane, Braille, employment
> skills maybe, and a philosophy of blindness. So part of your training at
> Blind, Inc. is to go and come in a more or less normal setting. At a guide
> dog school you are getting to know a new dog who has been shuttled between
> various homes in its life, has just had its raw training, and is taking
> its final exams. It is learning to transition from instructor to you, and
> you are coming to know it and at least some of its quirks. You are there
> for 2-4 weeks with a rather prescribed set of skill learning, and it's
> mainly about the dog. And believe me, I am ready to go home but a little
> anxious, too. At TSE if you could come and go as you liked, you are out in
> the country with no public transportation to speak of. Evenings there is
> pretty much one instructor on duty after the first week. Sundays  you can
> go to church but they take you there in the vans. The first Sunday you
> don't take the dog; after that you can. But again, at Blind, Inc., it is a
> whole different deal.
>
>
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