[nagdu] Guide Dog School

[Deanna Lewis]

Debby,
GDB's vet assistance is available to graduates regardless of if they have applied for ownership of the dog or not. If you keep your retired guide, or give them to a close family member, that person can also be reimbursed for the dog's vet expenses. Just wanted to clear that up. I hope that Lamar is doing ok after his surgery, poor guy. 
Deanna and Pascal

-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Debby Phillips via nagdu
Sent: Wednesday, March 11, 2015 11:15 AM
To: Helga Schreiber; NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users; blindcowgirl1993 at gmail.com; nagdu at nfbnet.org
Subject: Re: [nagdu] Guide Dog School

Hi Helga, well, as with everything there are advantages and disadvantages, I suppose.  For me, ownership was important, so I chose Seeing Eye rather than Guide Dogs for the Blind, which was definitely closer to me when I applied for my first dog.  For me, ownership meant being more independent.  There were some other reasons I didn't choose GDB, but they are not important to this current discussion.

Since I have never been in a position where the school owned the dog, there are some things I don't know.  But one advantage ow could see to the school owning the dog, especially in the case of Guide Dogs for the Blind, is that they do pay vet costs.  Those can be very expensive.  Yesterday is a good example.  My retired dog had to have surgery to clean and sew up a huge cut that he got.  That plus his and Neena's kennel cough shots was over $500.  
It was a pretty expensive do at our house.  (Smile).  Worth it, of course, because we all love Lamar.  But if Lamar was still a working dog, and the school owned him, they would probably help with those costs.  Certainly grads from GDB have a lot of support from the school, but they also have a lot more supervision.  So you will have to decide whether you need more support, knowing that you will have more requirements from the school to fill out papers, etc.  That's a decision only you can make.  There's nothing wrong with either choice, if that is what you want.  
Anyway, good luck!    Blessings,    Debby with Neena

_______________________________________________
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/dlewis%40clovernook.org

--
This email was Virus checked by UTM 9. http://www.sophos.com

-- 
This email was Virus checked by UTM 9. http://www.sophos.com

Sent from the Clovernook email system