[nagdu] Ownership of guide dog

[Buddy Brannan]

This is likely going to be an unpopular opinion, but there it is. 

First, a harness does not confer any special privileges on a dog. A dog is a working guide, regardless of working gear, or it is not a working guide. If you've retired a dog, it isn't a working guide. Unless you pull the dog out of retirement and it resumes its service functions, harness or no harness, you don't have the right to be accompanied by it. Well, I suppose the law says that the dog must be "individually tai trained", so one could argue that the dog still has said training on it, thus it still qualifies as a working guide, even if it's retired. Point is, the harness doesn't confer any privilege on the dog. 

When I've retired a dog, if I needed to take him somewhere, like the vet, or even if I wanted to take him somewhere, I went with pet rules. In general, this worked fine, and especially when people had already known us, there was no problem. Our local taxi company even said that taking my retired guide wouldn't be an issue with most drivers, but I'm lucky in that respect, as Erie is very small town that way. Still, it strikes me that trying to pass off your non-working dog as a guide just so you can take him out into public is stretching the intent of the law just a bit. 
--
Buddy Brannan, KB5ELV - Erie, PA
Phone: (814) 860-3194 or 888-75-BUDDY



On Mar 12, 2012, at 5:53 PM, Sheila Leigland <sleigland at bresnan.net> wrote:

> Hi, not a bad idea. I actually thought about doing that when Drake retired in case I  needed to take him on public trransportation such as going to the vet's office. I would never have worked my dog injured or sick so I didn't relinquish my harness until after Drake was put down. I did explain why I kept the harness however, and that seemed to be okay. 
> 
> Sheila Leigland
> 
> _______________________________________________
> nagdu mailing list
> nagdu at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nagdu_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for nagdu:
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nagdu_nfbnet.org/buddy%40brannan.name