There is an article circulating in the news media about a guide dog who rescued his owner from subway tracks after the owner passed out and fell from the platform. Whenever articles are published regarding dog guides and accidents, there are always a host of questions and misconceptions that follow. In this case, the dog is older and near retirement age; and some news media outlets have begun trying to raise money because they think that the person’s insurance will not pay for the dog’s veterinary expenses or a replacement dog.
As a person who has been working with dog guides for 22 years, I want to respond to these issues in a way that can help people understand some facts about life with a guide dog and what to do and not do in situations like this.
No, dog guides’ vet expenses are not covered by my medical insurance. I do have the option of buying pet insurance for my dog. This is not the time to trot out the argument that my dog is not a pet. She is an animal, and her medical needs are related to that fact. The appropriate type of insurance for her is insurance that deals with animals. My insurance company would not be equipped to make choices about the fitness of veterinary procedures for her; and I would not want them making those decisions. All matters regarding her life do not have to do with her status as my working companion or with my blindness. Sometimes those things must be disentangled and we must become the two separate beings that we actually are.
Next, the cost of dog replacement in the event that my dog has an accident or retires early… News articles often state that the cost of a guide dog is anywhere from $20,000 to $70,000–it depends on where the author gets their facts. What they leave off are two important things: schools are largely supported by donations; and the guide dog user pays only a small portion of that cost. At some schools, the guide dog user pays a nominal fee; at others they pay the cost of their transportation; at others, the guide dog user is sponsored and pays nothing. The result of this fact omission is that massive fund-raising campaigns are begun to allow the traumatized person to get another dog. How about suggesting that people support the school, or if the author really want to be helpful to the person, raising money to help the person pay their own medical bills? If an author is going to raise the issue of medical bills for a guide dog, a lot of fact-checking should take place before that is ever published because several schools do step in and help in a severe trauma situation.
The most important thing to know: We are never just out here on our own to figure out what to do with our dogs. Some schools do offer support with vet expenses in an emergency. In my own situation, I am responsible for my dog’s veterinary care; hence the option to insure the dog. The school is always there to assist in decision-making, and that includes decisions about retirement. In the retirement of all four of my previous guides, the school has assisted me in determining the timing and in confirming my choice of placement for the dog. The option has always been available to send my dogs to the school for attempted placement with their raiser families. In my dogs’ cases, they have retired with families who lived near me, and I have continued to have interaction with them during their retirement years.
Please understand that news reporters do not always check their facts when reporting about disability-related items. More often than not, I read articles about people with disabilities where things have been misquoted, terminology misused because the reporter does not understand what the speaker means and writes things down hastily, facts reported from a statistics site but not properly interpreted, etc. Before you start giving to a fund, please make sure that the need is legitimate. If you happen to be a journalist, please allow your interviewees to pre-read your article before you submit it. It may help to prevent a lot of miscommunication.
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Your comment about journalists not fact checking is so true! I was the subject od an article in 2005 where this did not happen. I described a tactile image creator that TVI’s call a toaster. The young reporter called the machine a “toaster in the field.”