[nagdu] Devil's advocate on ownership

[Jenine Stanley]

Before I pose this question, or series of questions, let me say that I am
very in favor of full ownership, if not for everyone directly upon
graduation, very soon thereafter. I recall in the 1990's, a number of
schools did change their policies to afford full ownership upon graduation.
I know GDF did so. 

That said, why have some schools changed their policies back to some type of
custody or arrangement by which the school has legal title to the dog and
hence the ability to take the dog back without other entities being
involved? 

I think things began to get a little tense, and I have no citations for
this, just a gut feeling, when the man in Pennsylvania killed his guide dog.
Sorry, can't remember off the top of my head when that took place. 

Over the years, even Seeing eye has had some grads who have abused their
dogs to the point that legal intervention was necessary. I would hope that
no one sets out to abuse a dog. Many habitual abusers can fake it well
enough to get through training and aftercare visits though. The man in
Pennsylvania certainly did this. He had a host of other issues, as I'd wager
do most people who abuse their dogs to the point that the dog must be taken
away. 

This percentage of abusers is minuscule in terms of applicants and
graduates, but who do you remember? The big question about the man who
killed his dog, beyond how could someone do such a thing, was,  how did this
person get a dog to begin with? 

That's not really fair to Leader as he looked fine to them up until he
killed the dog. In fact, an instructor did a home visit a month before the
incident. Leader got a lot of bad press and questions, I'd wager, from their
donors and others over the incident though. 

Did they over react by changing their ownership policy? Professionally, I'll
reserve opinion on that one, but I fully understand their reasoning. 

It is disturbing to hear such revisions couched in language about
"protecting the dogs." If I am that bad and the dog needs protection from
me, why have I been accepted for training? 

That said, if you ran a guide dog school, how would you handle situations in
which you saw people abusing or neglecting dogs that they legally owned? 

Often the local animal cruelty laws have conditions well above what we would
consider cruel or neglectful for a working dog. This means that the animal
control officers or courts often won't touch guide dog abuse allegations,
even when they are legitimate. 

Let's face it. There are people for whom working and caring for a dog is too
much. There are people who may treat a dog the way they were treated as a
child and that may not be kindly. 

What would you do if someone from the public called in a complaint about a
grad? 

We all know that most complaints are simple misunderstandings or over
reactions to appropriate corrections. There are that small percentage though
of complaints that are valid. 

How would you investigate such a complaint? What would you then do if you
found that the dog was being abused or neglected? 

I often hear guide dog handlers say after publicized abuse events that the
schools have the right to protect the dogs. See my opinion above on that
one. <grin> 

>From a school's point of view, another dynamic is occurring that may cause
policy changes. Many people are no longer accepting any dog and are
returning or retiring dogs that are not suitable for them. Many of these
dogs may truly need to retire from guide work for one reason or another.
Some of them are just not good matches for that particular handler. Yet, if
the person owns the dog, he or she can do with it whatever he or she wants.
Some people choose to retire a dog who might be reevaluated and placed with
another person. 

How would you handle this situation, short of making better matches,
something we all hope happens but something that can change for any team
over time? 

Understand I'm not challenging anyone's position here, just posing questions
as to how you might handle things if you were on the other side of the desk.
Many of us have been in a class with people we questioned. Sometimes those
people are changed by having a dog. Sometimes they sadly are not. 
 Jenine Stanley
jeninems at wowway.com