[nagdu] Third party reporting by other guide dog users

[Criminal Justice Major]

Hi, Mimer,
I'm a Pilot grad as well and have been able to get support from them when it was needed.
I mostly tried to communicate with the executive director of the school as I felt very comfortable with him, given the fact that he was willing to help me out during a rough time upon him not wanting me to give up on Odie quickly during training.
Truth is no guide/assistance dog school is perfect and I figure that depending on who you talk with from either school, it has to be up to the staff member or trainer that would be willing to take the situation seriously.
This can also fall on the handlers too because when my trainer Mike Tessmer touched upon that during my training class, he stated clearly it would be up to us on how we'd go home with our partners.
We could bring home a well-mannered and trained guide, or end up with a monster.
I did have someone contact the Denver Dumb Friends League's investagions department on me one time, claming Odie wasn't being fed, taken care of or bathed properly and that I was abusing him.
I was stunned from that point and my partner wasn't happy that this happened to us.
The investigator took one look at Odie and he was satisfied that everything was looking great along with that my partner was happy with me.
Odie after a while wanted the investigator out of our home and gone.
I did contact Jay Gray, the executive director at Pilot the following day and told him what happened.
I honestly stated that Odie was in good hands and I love him very much.
I admitted that if I didn't care for Odie, then it made no sense for me to even have him as my great guide.
The biggest thing I have to remember when or if having to give Odie a good scolding or correct is to ballance everything out with praise when I say good boy and that's better.
Another truth to this if Odie wasn't happy with me, he wouldn't constantly bug the living days out of me for his breakfast or dinner.
Odie also wouldn't purposely burp or pass gas in my face one bit.
He's happy now that I've given him his dinner and I'm sure he's hoovering it down right now as I write.
No matter how many times all of us try to explain something to an individual in the general public and they just don't want to listen, then I figure that's their own problem and just keep going on with what we're set out to do.
*Smiles*
Bibi