[nagdu] Bill of Rights statement Concerning Health, Temperment, & Behavior

Tue Apr 19 17:46:07 UTC 2011

Lisa,

Painful story.  I'm sorry you had to go through it but am glad you have the
courage to share.  Others may be going through the same thing -- or will --
and knowing they're not alone may give them both comfort and strenghth.  And
perhaps more information they can use to resolve their own issues/problems
before it's also too late.

If I may ask, since you mentioned your guilt feelings -- do you recall how
many times, if any, the program trainer and/or staff told you that you were
the one doing things wrong.  I confess to being overly cynical in
automatically assuming that that was their first response to your concerns
about the behavior.  I just have noticed that those involved in resources
for PWDs, the consumer is always wrong and should be informed of that in the
most demeaning and even cruel way possible.  As many times as possible.  I
don't understand this phenomenon, and I don't know if my understanding will
do anything at all for anybody on the receiving end, but ...  I still would
like to understand it in case I can figure out how to do something useful in
some way to prevent those same people carrying on doing that to the folks
they're being paid to serve.

Which is why I'm happy NAGDU is following through on the creation of the
Bill of Rights.  Guide dogs are a resource -- provided by the charitable
donors known as funding sources -- so for all the really good people who do
as they should with character and intelligence and diligence to strong
ethics, there do appear to be an unfortunate percentage of bad apples.  I'm
coming to the conclusion, based on consistent behavioral patterns across
organizations and resource types, that there's some sort of, I dunno,
personality type or something like that which is drawn into that sort of
work which has nothing to do with a desire to help anyone at all.  These
same personalities seem to be the first ones to go on about how grateful we
should be for the wonderful things they're doing for us, etc., etc., we've
all heard the whole spiel, when they're so clearly putting forth their best
efforts to ensure we don't receive the help they're being paid to give us...

So I think it's important to share our individual stories and to communicate
our ideas with the increased freedom we have on the internet.  That's been
happening more and more, as a result of the earlier work of organizations
like the NFB -- primarily that of the NFB in our cases -- and that power to
interact and communicate gives us more power to add to those very
organizations.

We can also communicate that the bad behavior is not okay and then work
collectively to make it more difficult for the bad apples to spread the rot.
Whew!  

Tami Smith-Kinney

-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf
Of Lisa Irving
Sent: Monday, April 18, 2011 11:36 PM
To: NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users
Subject: Re: [nagdu] Bill of Rights statement Concerning Health,
Temperment,& Behavior

Marion,

Without making things too complex, is there some way to include verbiage 
about disclosing observations made by the puppy raiser family(s)? Here's the

context to my question.

The puppy raiser family informed  me about the dog allergies. The school 
didn't know, or disregarded the puppy raiser's observations. I don't want to

confuse "observations" with "opinions". One is measureable and can be 
validated; observations. Again, it was the puppy raiser family that informed

me, after my guide dog was released, of the school's findings and medical 
intervention for the infections.

Lisa and Bernie
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Marion Gwizdala" <blind411 at verizon.net>
To: "NAGDU List" <nagdu at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Monday, April 18, 2011 4:10 AM
Subject: [nagdu] Bill of Rights statement Concerning Health, Temperment,& 
Behavior

> Dear All,
>    Here is the proposed language for the Bill of Rights, Please offer any 
> input or suggestions you may have.
>
> The training program shall fully disclose to the consumer, in writing and 
> in the accessible format of the consumer's choice, all known issues 
> concerning the dog's health, temperament, behavior, and training prior to 
> placement.
>
>
>
> Fraternally yours,
>
> Marion
>
>
>
>
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