Service Dog's vest removed when he gained weight

[leadinglabbie]

Wow. But, you know, I remember people from this school being somewhat stand-offish when I contacted them a few years ago. I was working on a brochure for the place where I worked about service dogs in taxis. I didn't really feel I could adequately address the issue without talking to some non-guide-dog organizations. emerge and others will be happy to

Comments

[emerge]

My responses to this are mixed. As with every news piece, there are both sides to the story. My suspicion is that there is more going on than we the public are notified of, but again that is only a suspicion. The removal of the vest may have happened only after a series of warnings, weighings, weight-loss attempts, or other cooperative measures, and may or may not have been related to the dog's alleged failure to meet "up to PAWS' specifications

[leadinglabbie]

Yes, I agree that there are generally three sides to a story like this: her side, Paws' side, and the truth. :) But I have a real ethical issue with a school hoping to "motivate" its grads with the "fear" of losing the dog's vest. This is simply not appropriate.

[emerge]

As the article stated, "She says 'PAWS' removes vests from dogs who become overweight because those dogs typically have more health problems. The animals can cost $20,000 to raise and train. 'PAWS' says, knowing they could lose the vests motivates clients to keep their dog in shape

[leadinglabbie]

(A brief response, since I'm on the phone while typing.) I checked Paws' web site and couldn't find any info about ownership of the dogs. (I did only give it a cursory glance, though.) If they *do* retain ownership of the dog, it would have been better, IMO, to remove the dog rather than remove the vest, if the situation became that extreme. (Also, thanks for pointing out that "fear" was not a word used in the article.) I don't mean to imply that these programs should not work diligently to make sure their dogs are healthy; but there are definitely situations where vests/harnesses have been removed, and when the handler is incorrectly advised by the program that they can no longer use the dog as a service animal. I wonder what this woman would have done if Paws had said, "Hey, let us take the dog for a while and get him back into shape for you." (Of course, this could have acutally occurred.)

[leadinglabbie]

It sounds like the client did not
attempt to purchase a different vest for her dog through another
manufacturer and if that's the case I do applaud that, in the interests
of her dog's health and yet again preserving the integrity of the image
of working dogs. Well...the problem is, it's likely that this is not why she didn't purchase another vest (if she indeed didn't purchase another). I would venture to guess that she might habe been unaware of her rights in this situation