[NAGDU] Ownership in Germany - for Rebecca and everyone who's interested

[Lisa]

Hi Lisa,


Since I'm working my first dog at the moment I can only tell what I 
heard from other owners about retirement or early retirement.

I know of some insurance companies that ask for an annual document from 
the vet that states the dog is still able to work. But that's not 
mandatory. Mine doesn't.


 From what I heard from fellow guide dog users, the insurance company 
plays the least important role in deciding what happens to the dog after 
retirement. There are schools that help looking for a home then but I 
don't know how often that happens. I'm also not very happy with this 
system because an insurance company that's, in my opinion, mainly 
interested in making money shouldn't be the owner of an animal, 
especially since they are definitely no experts on dogs or working dogs 
or anything regarding this topic.


Lisa



Am 23.05.2017 um 20:19 schrieb Lisa Belville via NAGDU:
> Wow, Lisa, this arrangement has the potential to be very damaging if 
> an insurance company decided to assert their ownership rights.  what 
> happens when your dog retires or if it becomes too sick to work?  Do 
> they have a say so in what happens then?
>
> I guess I'm glad we don't have this system here even if we don't have 
> decent healthcare.  Woops, not wanting to be political, but just 
> imagining how it would be if guide dogs were handled by our healthcare 
> and insurance systems.
>
> Lisa
>
> Lisa Belville
> missktlab1217 at frontier.com
> I'm great at multi-tasking. I can waste time, be unproductive, and 
> procrastinate all at once.
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Lisa via NAGDU" <nagdu at nfbnet.org>
> To: "NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users" 
> <nagdu at nfbnet.org>
> Cc: "Lisa" <dreamymarmot93 at yahoo.de>
> Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2017 5:39 AM
> Subject: [NAGDU] Ownership in Germany - for Rebecca and everyone who's 
> interested
>
>
>> Hi Rebecca,
>>
>>
>> you asked if I could explain how ownership is handled in Germany. 
>> I'll try. ;-)
>>
>>
>> Over here, a guide dog is listed as an aid to midigate a disability 
>> like a wheelchair or a cane. This means health insurance pays for the 
>> dog. You have to get a prescription from your eye specialist, find 
>> yourself a school that suits you and then apply for cost acquision 
>> with your health insurance company. In most cases, this is a long and 
>> annoying process because many people get denied at first. Not because 
>> of concerns regarding your ability to take care of a dog but because 
>> of the high costs a guide dog brings. But anyway, after you succeeded 
>> in applying and also in training with your new guide, your health 
>> insurance company becomes the owner of the dog. They remain the owner 
>> until you retire your dog. Then you can either keep it and become the 
>> owner yourself or find him/her a home.
>>
>> There are only two schools in Germany that handle ownership 
>> differently. They remain owner of the dog and the health insurance 
>> still pays for the dog.
>>
>> The big difference to the US is, in my understanding, that we don't 
>> have the opportunity to get ownership for our working dogs at all.
>>
>>
>> I should also add that even though your health insurance company is 
>> the owner of the dog in most cases they don't care about it much. I 
>> have to send in documents that say Taylor gets vaccinated once a 
>> year, a worm preventative twice a year and I have a liability 
>> insurance for him. Apart from that, they aren't interested in what 
>> I'm doing with my dog.
>>
>>
>> Lisa
>>
>>
>>
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>
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