Why The VA Has Provided No Money For Service Dogs – In Their Own Words
Posted on | April 18, 2009 | 3 Comments
I saw yet another upset comment this morning about “Why doesn’t the VA pay for service dogs?”, so I thought this would be a good time to outline the concise history of their position, especially since I don’t believe it can be found all in one place anywhere. The subject comes up all the time and if you have an interest in this area, you definitely need to know the background so you can have an intelligent discussion and come to an informed opinion.
First, you need to know that there are still ongoing discussions about this subject. My understanding of where things stand now is that they are “on hold”, like so many things are with the change of administrations. That said, here’s the short version of the background/history…
In early 2002, Public Law 107-135 (specifically Title II, Section 201(c)(2)) was passed which said the VA could, but didn’t have to, provide service dogs to veterans with certain disabilities. Since then, the VA has taken seven years, spent several hundred thousand dollars, done three studies, and still has not come to a definitive conclusion.
And, while the VA talks about “providing” dogs, the only thing they’ve really been trying to decide is whether to pay the same monthly stipend to disabled veterans with a service dog that they’ve been paying to those with guide dogs for many years. That’s it – there’s been no intent (and that I’m aware of there still isn’t) to “pay for service dogs” the way some describe it, i.e., fund organizations who train assistance dogs.
There was a January 2008 memo signed by the former Secretary which summarized their position (and got at least one angry response which you can find online if you want – I’m not gonna post that link). I’ve read the memo, but I’ve got something even better for you – the man behind the memo describing the VA thinking about service dogs in his own words a few months later.
Fred Downs, the VA’s Chief Consultant, Prosthetics and Sensory Aids did an hour-long interview with Brian Lamb for C-SPAN on June 5th, 2008, during which he discussed many things, including his handling of the service dog issue. You can watch the video below – skip to the 51:20 mark which is where the pertinent section starts. The transcript is available here – I’ve included the pertinent excerpt below (it’s a little long, but I didn’t want you to have to wade through the original to find it).
Do I have strong opinions about a number of things that were said there? You bet. But rather than get into those right now, I’ll just let Fred Downs speak for himself, and you can listen to him and/or read the transcript, see the kinda thinking that drives these decisions, and come to your own conclusions.
I’ve been considering opening up comments here, and this seems like a good time since I’d certainly like to know what you think about this one, so I’ll give it a shot. Although, I gotta tell you – I’ve seen a lotta ranting and raving on this subject over time, and I don’t think it’s helped in the past nor will it in the future. If it really bugs you, one thing I’d suggest is contacting your elected members of Congress. While I’d like to have seen more progress on this issue, you will note that Congressional pressure is the one thing that got the VA’s attention, and things wouldn’t even have gotten as far as they have without it.
One question none of us can answer – and which truly bothers me – is “How many veterans – some of whom may no longer be with us – have missed out on getting a service dog over the last seven years because they needed the VA’s help and it wasn’t there?” We’ll never know – just like we don’t know how many are still in that same boat right now.
Here’s the video and transcript – please check them out:
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Transcript Excerpt – Fred Downs C-SPAN Interview, 6/5/08
LAMB: But give us an example without naming names of a problem you’re dealing with.
DOWNS: Of a problem I’m dealing with right now …
LAMB: Or have dealt with, which is complicated and involves all this.
DOWNS: OK. One is service dogs. Service dog is different than a guide dog. A guide dog for the blind is very well defined. About five years ago an advocacy group convinced a congressman to put a law in place that the VA would provide service dogs to veterans and that’s about as big as it got and that’s – the law was passed. So then it comes over as a law and my job then, because it’s assigned to prosthetics, will have to know regulation, policy and procedures to carry this out. Well it turns out there were no real standards concerning service dogs. Now service dog, for folks who may not know, is – you often see them and they’ll have a saddle on their back and they’re with a disabled individual, sometimes in a wheelchair and they can put things in the saddle bags on the animal and sometimes the dog can do things like open doors and there are other functions that dogs are suppose to be able to perform and so there’s a large advocacy group out there pushing service dogs as being a solution for helping disabled folks get through life and be independent but there’s no – so we had – I had to put together a worker (ph) because there’s no standards and how to develop policy when – I mean do you have a Chihuahua and a German Shepherd, what kind of functions do they perform and who trains them and you have people in prisons that train them and you have people in their homes who train them and so there’s a Web site – you go to the Web site on service dogs, there’s dozens and dozens of them. And all these folks are well meaning but what are the standards? So we have to develop standards to ensure quality of care to the veteran because the dog – you got to make sure the dog is taken care of because then the humane folks want to make sure that the dogs not mistreated. So there’s training issues for who trains them, training issues for the veteran, how they use the animal, which kind of animals do you use and how are they trained, so we had to put all this together. While we were putting it all together, well the congressmen keep getting pushes from the advocate groups to why isn’t the VA providing service dogs yet. So it took – we had to research – there’s no research to support it so we had to hold them off while we did some research. So we did a couple of research projects to see what do dogs, do they really function the way they do, are they – what do they cost, what are they worth, what can they do, how long do they live and what are the vet bills going to be, what kind of harnessing do you have to pay for, all these kind of issues.
LAMB: By the way, how much do they cost?
DOWNS: It depends. You get them – non-profit gives you the dog. Other folks want to charge you 15, $20,000 and so it’s like – it’s all over the board. And who – and what are your standards for training and so that’s a big issue.
LAMB: Who pays in the end and how many service dogs …
DOWNS: Well I was supposed to figure all this out, see. This is what we do. The law is passed and now how do we make it work and so it took us about five years to come up with – getting the research project took a long time and research project and we had a group committee, meanwhile we’re getting a lot of pressure from certain congressmen who want this to be provided and so – but we can’t – we explained to the different congress folks why weren’t not making any quicker progress than we are and so they understand that. It’s a process.
LAMB: How long did it take to get the actual dog …
DOWNS: It’s taken about five years and we finally have a final draft in place and so what we’re going to do is we’ll provide service dogs on a case-by-case basis. We’ll accept dogs only from non-profit organization. And we’re developing standards – we have to develop the standards because there are no standards so we’re working with the service dog industry to develop standards in training and other …
LAMB: How much will VA pay of all this?
DOWNS: We’re not going to pay anything for the dog because we get the dog from non-profit. We will pay the veterinarian cost and we’ll pay for the harnessing. That’s what we do with the guide dogs.
LAMB: How many do you expect to have to provide?
DOWNS: Well that’s another thing. We don’t know. That is an unknown to us. We’re going to do it on a case-by-case basis because at this stage we have no idea which disability can use a service dog and those are unknowns for us.
LAMB: But just for case of this discussion, how much did it cost you to do those studies and how long did they take?
DOWNS: They cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to do the studies. Like I said it took – they were supposed to be 18 month studies. They turned into three-year studies because of the difficulties of putting together the research on it, the evaluation.
LAMB: Meanwhile are any of these veterans getting dogs?
DOWNS: No. No.
LAMB: And are the members of congress that pushed the hardest for it still in Congress?
DOWNS: Right.
LAMB: They’re still there?
DOWNS: They’re still there.
LAMB: Are they unhappy along the way because …
DOWNS: Well they’re unhappy, yes, because we haven’t been able to come up with the policy yet. We’re not providing the dogs and so there are some vets who want these dogs.
LAMB: What about the advocacy groups? Are they …
DOWNS: Advocacy groups want the dogs because they think the service dogs are good solution. So that’s part of that – what makes my job so interesting and so great is that we are responding – we have to respond to Congress. We have to respond to the veterans’ needs. We have to stay within the rules and how the government works. We have to be fiscally responsible, in other words pay attention to cost. We have to balance all of these in trying to meet the needs of all of these different constituencies; the veteran, the service dog industry, the Congress and then of course the budget people. We need to be able to give them information about how many of these dogs we’re going to provide and how much money would that cost. So this is an example of a sticky issue that came down the pike that you can’t ignore. It’s important. It has value to certain individuals and certain veterans.
LAMB: Speculate though? How many dogs do you think you’re going to have to deal with?
DOWNS: I even hate to say this, I can’t speculate. I don’t know.
LAMB: Will it be a thousand or will it be 500 or will it be 20,000?
DOWNS: I think it would 500 to 1,000. It won’t be 20,000. I don’t think so.
LAMB: Is it worth all this expense, all this time?
DOWNS: Well that’s always the crucial question, is it worth the expense? If the dog is able to perform what it’s supposed to do, then it would be worth it to the individual. And that’s where government is different than private industry. We, in the government, yes, we may spend more money to solve this particular problem but, over a period of time, we’ve increased the quality of life of the individual. We’ve put stability into the industry. We have responded to a law. So we’ve been able to stabilize what has been an unknown area and put some structure and form to it and begin to frame it. Now whether it’s worth it or not? When you’re dealing with the human body and a condition, is this arm worth $2,400 and is it worth it versus the MyoElectric arm, which is maybe worth $60,000, so which one of these is best for me? Cost wise, the bean counters will say, no, you go with this arm. Health wise, quality wise and just from a human standpoint of quality of life, you’ll go with MyoElectric. So that’s how you do this.
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3 Responses to “Why The VA Has Provided No Money For Service Dogs – In Their Own Words”
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August 15th, 2009 @ 7:26 am
Well, after serving 22 years in the military and seeing/hearing double talk, this does not surprise me. Our soldiers are the most important people there are, and the Government needs to get off their ars and do something aside from doing surveys and SAY we are making rules and regulations. Stop spending this money on you and put it where it is needed! If one of their children needed the dog, believe me they would break all the rules to get one. TAKE CARE OF OUR MEN AND WOMEN WHO SERVE!!! GOD BLESS AMERICA AND OUR SOLDIERS
August 27th, 2009 @ 8:24 am
From my 22 yrs of service…I understand perfectly that the taxpayer and the VA have the right and responsibility to ensure our vets are getting quality help from good quality dogs, and the way to do this is establish standards of training and certification for these dogs.
That said…I find no reasonable explanation as to why this process has taken so long. Those involved with this evaluation should be fired and replaced by professionals who are qualified to establish standards and procedures for vetting service dogs. This process should not take more than a year…period.
August 27th, 2009 @ 4:11 pm
He certainly has done a poor job of information research on Service Dogs. I am not a dog trainer, however I’ve been in the Mainstream Assistance Dog World as a consumer and on the Board of Directors of the Internation Association of Assistance Dogs (IAADP)for 6 years. I am an Advocate for people with disabilities who use Assistance Dogs, I qualify as a Court Expert Witness on Federal Assistance Dog laws, and CA State Laws.
I have an idea for a plan based on the Prisoner Training Model, where VA Patients at each VA medical center with a Professional Trainer could place a screened and selected dog with each Patient wanting an Assistance Dog, in groups of 10 Patient/Dog Teams the Professional Trainer could several times a week work with all Patient/Dog teams. Training the Patients to train their own Assistance Dog complete with the specific tasks that Patient needs from the dog.
The problem with going to not-for-profit organizations as to a Military “in house training program” is the 2-7 year waiting list. To get dogs for the Veterans non-profit organizations can’t just drop their civilian 2-7 year waiting list, to supply dogs for Veterans. However the Military can do it in house, at a very reasonable cost, and supply Assistance Dogs much faster than the Traditional way. This would include PTSD Service Dogs. It can be done.