“We Need a Law to Protect Seeing-Eye Dogs”
by Tom Shanahan
Albany Times Union - October 16, 1998

“Thank God,” the woman exclaimed after I explained that the puppy accompanying me through the Legislative Office Building was being raised to be a seeing-eye dog. “Finally, someone raising a dog to help people instead of attacking them.”

It was a perspective I never considered when my wife and I became “puppy walkers,” volunteers who raise puppies for the first year of their life, then return them for formal training as seeing-eye dogs.

That woman’s perspective was distressingly reinforced last summer when the Times Union

reported the attack of a vicious dog on a seeing-eye dog (Rottweiler attacked guide dog earlier, Times-Union, July 10). “Tony,” the Black Labrador puppy we are raising for the Guide Dog Foundation for the Blind, has been specially bred, and is being further trained, not to be hostile or aggressive. Even at a young age, he demonstrated the qualities which will make him so valuable at the work ahead of him, the ability to concentrate, obey commands, and remain in control on a leash. His breeding and training would obviously place him at a serious disadvantage if attacked by an aggressive dog. Last summer’s incident in Albany is not an isolated problem. Although no agency keeps statistics, according to Bruce Benzler, Director of Program Services for the Guide Dog Foundation, based on experience, attacks on guide dogs by more aggressive dogs appear to be increasing statewide.

Balcony Inside The NY State Capitol Bldg.

There is an important economic consideration here. It costs roughly $25,000 to prepare a guide dog. At the same time, we should never forget that the value of such a dog to the person who needs one is incalculable, and the psychological trauma to the owner of an attacked dog is often as bad as the damage to their guide dog.

Unfortunately, there is nothing in state law that allows the recovery of monetary damages from owners whose dogs attack licensed guide dogs. The owner can simply pay a small fine for allowing the dog to run free, without any other consequences. The law treats an attack by one dog on another as “natural,” even though aggressive dogs usually get that way only because of training by humans.

Legislation to correct this, by allowing guide dog owners to recover costs for the actual damages inflicted on guide dogs, was considered by the state Legislature this year. While it reached the floor in the Senate, it died in committee in the Assembly.

Hopefully, this legislation would not only allow the recovery of damages, but instill more responsibility in the owners of aggressive dogs. I strongly suspect the owner of a vicious dog need only be forced to pay the veterinarian bills for the damage inflicted by a single attack, before assuming an entirely different attitude concerning their responsibility to control a vicious dog.

This legislation should be made a priority when the Legislature returns in January.

People often ask me how anyone can avoid getting emotionally attached to a beautiful puppy like Tony, especially after raising and training him for a whole year? The answer is very simple, you can’t. What my wife and I are being asked to do is a very hard thing, but we do it because other people truly need these dogs.

But in many ways, it’s even harder for Tony. We knew what was in store when we joined this program, he doesn’t. In addition to a lifetime of skilled service to people, and being denied many of the activities that normally occupy a dog’s life, he will be permanently taken from the family he first loved.

The least the people of New York can do for these wonderful animals is offer them legal protection.