[NAGDU] Why I feel dog ownership is important

[Brent Franklin]

Hello Sharon and all,

Absolutely fantastic to see you posting here Sharon, I  know you have
plenty to contribute.

Sharon and I have dogs from the same school. I have only in the past 2
weeks gone over my contract in major detail. My dog while still working is
coming up to retire. The contract does state that up until the age of 5
the school owns the dog, but once the dog turns 5 the client can fill out
forms and take ownership of the dog.

I took ownership of my dog on Friday and he will turn 11 years of age this
Thursday. My reason for taking ownership is because I have a home for him
to retire to, and the school has started charging a fee for people to get
retired dogs. Me taking ownership means two things.

1, I have now complete say in what happens to the dog when he retires.
While generally if you had arranged a home for the dog the school wouldn't
object, but they had to sign off on it, which means they could object.

2, The school is now charging people a fee for retired guides. Me taking
ownership means no fee needs to be paid. Clients of the school can take
ownership of there dog for free.

I disagree with the school charging a fee, my boy is going to a good home,
therefore I now have complete say on where he is going to live, and have
avoided any charges being passed on to the people who are going to take
very good care of him.

Cheers.

Brent.

-----Original Message-----
From: NAGDU [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Sharon S via
NAGDU
Sent: Saturday, 5 December 2020 1:19 AM
To: 'NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users'
Cc: Sharon S
Subject: Re: [NAGDU] Why I feel dog ownership is important

Hi all, I have been following this discussion with interest. The school I
use do remain the owner of the dogs but I have never felt the need to see
if this can be changed. My recent dog is the only one I have needed to
worry about it for and that was only after I retired him. I received Rolo
at an older age because he had a previous owner. The school told me his
previous handler died and the family handed him back to the school. I have
no reason not to believe this and he showed no signs of abuse when I got
him. The only problem he had was some separation anxiety and that was
understandable. He lost his owner, got taken to the local branch of the
school, they had him for awhile before deciding they didn't have a
suitable handler for him. Then he was sent to the head centre and put out
to a carer until he was matched with me. He then came to me for one night
to give us a test run. He then went back to the carer for a short time and
then bought back to live with me. For the first little while if I left him
in my room while I went to the bathroom he would cry. Over time this
became less of a problem and now he is retired he doesn't worry about
where I am. However, he does come and greet me when I come home  but he is
happy enough watching me when I leave the house.

I was the one who made the decision to retire Rolo because he didn't
appear to be enjoying work anymore and he was making mistakes that cause
some falls for me. It will be interesting when I get my next dog if when
Rolo sees the harness weather he will line up to put it on or maybe he
will understand this younger dog has come to take over the job and he will
just relax. It has been over a year since he retired but some times when I
am about to go out somewhere Rolo will come to me and ask me to let him
outside to toilet like we use to do when he was working.

I would have to dig out one of my old contracts to see exactly what they
say about ownership but I seem to remember it said something about the
school owning the dog for the first five years and after that the handler
can request ownership but I might be remembering wrong because it has been
quite some time since I read it.

I did meet one dog that had been taken back but that was because the
handler's partner was hitting the dog so I understand that one. But I
haven't heard of any others besides ones that fail working with a person.

Bye for now.
>From Shaz.
Canberra, Australia.



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