[nagdu] Ownership of guide dog

[Margo and Arrow]

I also have concerns about putting a harness on a non-working dog.

when I've taken my retired dog along with my working dog somewhere, the 
retired dog did not wear a harness.

margo and Arrow
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Buddy Brannan" <buddy at brannan.name>
To: "NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users" 
<nagdu at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Monday, March 12, 2012 9:03 PM
Subject: Re: [nagdu] Ownership of guide dog


> 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
>>
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