[nagdu] Guide Dogs And VA Facilities--what?!

[Jenine Stanley]

Dailyah, 


I think another thing we as a general community have to do is to impress
upon everyone claiming a service dog the huge responsibility involved in
maintaining training and behavior standards. None of us just go to train
with a dog at a school and never think again about obedience, using the
commands we learned, etc. OK, it might seem that way to some, but if you
want your dog to continue to work well, you must keep doing obedience in
some form, maintain your expectations of good behavior and actually use the
dog as it was intended. 

We all make it look easy and as society views us as having some sort of
privilege by being able to take our dogs with us, not recognizing that we
actually need our dogs to do things for us, they think that they can also
just bring a dog along and Voila! Or they can teach a dog a view basic
things and Voila! It's a service dog and oh, so it growls once in a while or
goes after another dog. They've seen those school dogs do that too, or it's
protecting them, or ... 

I think we all really need to mount a concerted effort to preach to people
who not only owner train but who attend schools and work with private
trainers, that the only way we keep our access rights is to present those
well behaved working dogs who work. 

OK, stepping down from that sop box. <grin> 

Jenine Stanley
jeninems at wowway.com
http://www.twitter.com/jeninems


-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf
Of Dailyah Patt
Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2012 3:14 PM
To: NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users
Subject: Re: [nagdu] Guide Dogs And VA Facilities--what?!

Hi Vanessa
Hi Vanessa.  Hi Buddy.

Two things...Anybody with a Guide from any of the IGDF member programs is
fine.  The other, which is a much larger "thing" to keep in mind - This bit
of icky regulation change isn't as bad as it would seem to be on the
surface.  Yes, it's a slippery slope headed some directions that aren't at
all friendly to owner trainers, but but but...it does not specifically DENY
access to owner trainers.  It just says that the dogs from the big programs
that are already doing the self-policing and self regulating type stuff MUST
be allowed, while not saying that Owner Trained Dogs also MUST be allowed.
 So, there's nothing stopping VA buildings (that I've found) from deciding
to go ahead and allow Owner trained dogs.  (I hope that makes sense.)  Of
course, the Mobility, Alert and Hearing Dog communities have been shrieking
about this thing for weeks since a WHOLE lot more of those dogs are owner
trained compared to the number of owner trained Guide Dogs.  The  conclusion
many of us have come to is that we're all best off presenting the VA with
lovely owner trained dogs and trying to pressure them into allowing those
dogs.  

Dailyah

P.S.  I just woke up!  I hope that the above is coherent and clear!  Haha


>________________________________
> From: Vanessa Lowery <vlowery at dhr.state.md.us>
>
>
That might be a question that both NAGDU and GDUI need to ask the
>Veteran's administration.
>
>Gonna share this with the GDUI leadership list.
>
>Leaving out any info that identifies you, Buddy.
>
>thanks for the info.
>
>Vanessa Lowery, LGSW
>
>>>> Buddy Brannan <buddy at brannan.name> 8/8/2012 1:06 PM >>>
>Someone just brought the following to my attention. What does this mean 
>for owner/trained guide and service dogs? Moreover, what does this mean 
>for the future of what constitutes a service dog?
>
>From
>http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc112/h1627_enr.xml#toc-H547AD04B80A24A
>DCBB02C96CBF22D067
>
>
>SEC. 109. USE OF SERVICE DOGS ON PROPERTY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS 
>AFFAIRS.
>
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