[nagdu] some considerations on ownership

Tue Jul 14 11:53:14 UTC 2015

Good question. 

Let me define *difficulty* in this case. 

In the case of the school granting full ownership, the school must go through local authorities to reclaim the dog. this varies based on local animal control regulations. In some areas schools must go to court to get an order from a judge to reclaim a dog because the animal control standards for cruelty don’t really apply or because, in the case of a dog who has bitten someone, the dog is in custody under quarantine and there’s a time limit before euthanasia. 

This can be *difficult* because we have run into local officials who don’t want to take the *poor blind person’s dog* away regardless of the situation. One humane officer asked me if we couldn’t just take the person and dog back for retraining until the person could understand what was going on. Hum, no, not in that case anyway. 

Then, even if the school does have custody or the right to remove the dog without local legal intervention, the *difficulty* comes when there is intervention. Yes, it is easier to remove a dog if you have the contractual standing to do so without going through the local legal system but the cost on instructors who must do this and staff who must build the case to do it is huge. Yes, we do have to build a solid case for removing a dog if the person has custody. It’s not something we do lightly. Why, if we have the right to do so? 

the handler can always hire legal council and contracts be damned, anyone can sue anyone for anything and the legal battles can get very ugly. This means that the difficulty of taking a dog back comes in the burden of proof, as it should when full ownership is granted. In the case of the school having custody or conditional ownership though, the school has to consider what it will look like to the consumers. Yes, schools do think about this, believe it or not. Some think more about it than others but they all do consider it. In some cases if the consumers knew the circumstances, they’d be paying us to remove the dog but in other cases, it’s not so clear. 

I hope that was at least sort of understandable. My point is that removing a dog, regardless of what the contract or lack of a contract says, is hard and no one on the school end goes into it lightly.
Jenine Stanley
jeninems at wowway.com

http://www.twitter.com/jeninems

> On Jul 13, 2015, at 10:26 PM, Michael Forzano via nagdu <nagdu at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> Jenine,
> 
> If it is difficult to remove a dog even if the school owns the dog,
> yet still possible to remove the dog even if owned by the handler,
> then why do schools have these conditional ownership policies? My only
> objection to the resolution concerned the well-being of the dog, but
> from your message, it sounds like the ownership policy doesn't make
> much of a difference.
> 
> Mike
> 
> On 7/13/15, Michael Hingson via nagdu <nagdu at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>> Jenine,
>> 
>> True, but we are not, most likely, the major donors the schools say they
>> worry about. Even so, five schools do provide ownership and they are still
>> in business. Using the donor and puppy raiser cards are not right nor
>> appropriate.
>> 
>> 
>> Regards,
>> 
>> 
>> Michael Hingson
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: nagdu [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Jenine Stanley
>> via nagdu
>> Sent: Monday, July 13, 2015 5:24 PM
>> To: NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users
>> Cc: Jenine Stanley
>> Subject: [nagdu] some considerations on ownership
>> 
>> As part of my job at GDF, I’ve been involved in sadly more than one case of
>> needing to remove a dog due to abuse when the person owned the dog. Leaving
>> class all was fine with no reason not to give the people full ownership.
>> things went south though.
>> 
>> It’s hard to remove a dog this way. It can be done but it’s not anything any
>> school undertakes easily.
>> 
>> Even when GDF did not have a full ownership policy, we found it very
>> difficult to remove dogs and I remember Emily Biegel, our former Admissions
>> Director, saying that she could only recall one dog in over 20 of her career
>> being removed due to supposed abuse or neglect or any other reason for that
>> matter. I think most instructors if involved in the decision to remove a dog
>> will do anything to help the partnership or encourage the person to make the
>> decision to give up the dog voluntarily if his or her life is not amenable
>> to having a guide dog.
>> 
>> Even with full ownership, people are afraid to call us because they fear we
>> will take their dogs. I joke with people and tell them if they knew about
>> the amount of paperwork it takes, they would know they have nothing to fear.
>> Truth is it does take paperwork, lots of phone calls and serious talks with
>> local law enforcement and animal control, even when the school owns the dog.
>> It’s not as easy as it might have been in past years.
>> 
>> Regarding donors not respecting or knowing about blind people, let’s not
>> sell them or puppy raisers short. Yes, many donors just want the poor
>> disabled people to have doggies but more and more donors are becoming smart
>> abut their gifts. Besides, I’d wager probably more than half the people
>> subscribed to this list donate to a guide dog school or have done so at
>> least once. Did you think about how that school viewed blind people’s
>> abilities when you donated? Maybe so. Most likely not but imagine if you
>> donated to a school because someone other than yourself had a dog from
>> there, maybe before you had a guide dog. that school seemed to consistently
>> accept people you wouldn’t want having a dog because you had seen them being
>> inappropriate and knew the blindness skills they would need. Maybe that
>> school used harsh training techniques. How long would you be likely to
>> donate to them? Not long I’d wager  and the very reasons we change guide dog
>> schools are similar  to those people cite for changing their donation
>> preferences.
>> 
>> Same thing with puppy raisers. There are puppy raisers who are blind on this
>> list I’m sure. Would you raise for a school that did not put a lot into
>> choosing the people who received that puppy? Even if you never had contact?
>> You would still want the school to do its utmost to assure that the person
>> would care well for the dog, work it and give it a good life.
>> 
>> so when we say these things don’t affect donors and puppy raisers, we are
>> really being short sighted because some of us are those very people.
>> Jenine Stanley
>> jeninems at wowway.com
>> 
>> http://www.twitter.com/jeninems
>> 
>> 
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>> 
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> 
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