[nagdu] Therapy dog

[Applebutter Hill]

Even with the harness off, it's still a guide dog, and harnesses are not 
necessary for service dog accessibility to apply, if they're trying to claim 
that. Who are they anyway to tell you what functions your service dog can or 
cannot perform? Are they guide dog trainers? This just sounds like prejudice 
to me.
Donna & Hunter

-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Cindy Ray via nagdu
Sent: Sunday, June 28, 2015 4:21 PM
To: 'NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users'
Cc: Cindy Ray
Subject: Re: [nagdu] Therapy dog

Except that the therapy dog program that refused me the opportunity to certify 
my dog said that it confuses the dogs if they are doing both guide work and 
therapy work. For instance, in a hospital, you would take the harness off and 
let the person love on them or whatever, and at that point the dog would not 
be a guide. Now, theoretically, in the read program you would be taking off 
the harness. Of course, I'm just playing devil's advocate there because I 
think it should all be a no brainer, and with those kind of credentials and a 
well trained dog I don't see the difference either.
Cindy


-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Jody Ianuzzi via 
nagdu
Sent: Sunday, June 28, 2015 10:31 AM
To: the National Association of Guide Dog Users NAGDU Mailing List
Cc: Jody Ianuzzi
Subject: [nagdu] Therapy dog

Hello Karla and all,

I have been thinking of Karla's post and I have a few ideas I would like to 
share.

First of all and most important is the issue of therapy dog.  The purpose of 
getting a therapy dog certification is to be able to take a dog places where a 
pet dog is not allowed.  A guide dog already has this certification.  To be a 
READ dog the dog sits quietly and pays attention to the child who is reading. 
A guide dog would do this.    Therefore the whole idea of getting the 
certification is totally unnecessary.

As for safety, I love the way schools always throw that out as a barrier to 
anything they don't like.  Some schools even say a blind child can't use a 
white cane for safety reasons.  This is just hysteria to put up another 
barrier.

As for Karla's qualifications, they should be thrilled to have a PhD and 
retired professor assisting with their students.  Instead they don't 
understand how a blind person can help a child read.  Really?  Give me a 
break.  When my children were learning to read they would read out loud to me 
and when they came to a word they didn't know I would have them spell it and 
we would sound it out together.  Again, the school is putting up another 
barrier.

So lets remove all the barriers and what do we have left?  Plain and simple 
prejudice.   If it were me I would first decide if I really wanted to be in 
such an environment or if there were a better place to volunteer where I would 
be appreciated like the public library reading program.  If I decided to fight 
the prejudice I would first  talk to the person putting up all the barriers 
and I would tell them exactly how I felt discriminated against by their 
behavior.  If they still insisted on their position I would go to the next 
level up all the way to the Superintendent of schools and if they still closed 
the door to me I would contact the media.

Just my two cents but really the therapy dog certification is not the issue 
here.

JODY ??
thunderwalker321 at gmail.com

"There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes." 
DOCTOR WHO (Tom Baker) _______________________________________________
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