new news. Yesterday I sat through two hours of. “did you sign this 990 form in 2010”. Yes. “did you review it before signing it” what do you mean review-- I looked at it” do you see right over your signature where it says that you swear the facts to be correct”. “Yes. That is right before it says to the best of my knowledge and that certainly is true because cpa said so.. ”and then we got into quickbooks, “do you mean someone you did not know walked into you house to keypunch?” “yes”. “ what did she keypunch?” I dunno. “You mean you signed ..... etc.....”
Then we ( Janine and I) were TOLD we would be required to come in for many more sessions. To go over the tractors, the guest house. Etc--- there was no end !!
What seemed to be the basis for their interrogation and basically handling me what is a list of requirements of assistance dog international that they had to do in order to be recertified by adi.. well I determine quite a while ago that I did not want to be or need to be certified by adi and I even have a letter from adi saying how wonderful my dogs -are,,,, --it's me they don't like. they have a specific agenda and I frankly don't approve and unfortunately I say so regularly.
I can appreciate what they are trying to do is to have some control over just who is a service dog and who is a service dog trainer but they're requirements have absolutely nothing to do with training dogs.. at which point I've said so.
at one point there were two women from adi-who came here and spend an awful lot of time going through I think it was 6 loose leaf notebooks of paperwork.. in two days... and never once even laid eyes on a dog.
As you all know I've never had much regard for paperwork anyway.. I have a mission statement which dedicates me to training dogs to help people.. that has nothing to do with copying and pasting filing hundreds of pieces of paper for which I can say no purpose. when I first started out I can see there was a benefit and belonging to this group adi--but asa life went on I stopped to ask myself why was I paying so much to them just so I could belong.
There was a rumor out that if you belong to adi your veterans could get insurance health insurance for their dogs. well we did a little bit of time and money study and found out it was cheaper for us to pay for the insurance then it was to belong to adi and have them have it. I don't know what the service dog project is doing now but when I left veterans had coverage.
ADI and many Facebook readers got some mileage out of the day I kept two adult male dogs from fighting using everything I had which was two hands 2 feet. Which is normal for trying to keep two dogs from fighting.
they'll probably send that around again now that I've mentioned it but you all have watched me for years and know I'm not abusive of my dogs but you also know I don't want them fighting too--so on occasion you do whatever you have to. not a big deal.
When I started service dog project in about 2003 it was a bare bones organization I had a couple of dogs and myself and eventually Megan and we turned out some damn good dogs but I did not have a bookkeeper eventually add Theresa and then Linda and then Lynn to help with the paperwork and registering and filing and things like that and I did not pay attention... I was training dogs, and keeping the many facets of this place running... never realizing there was a whole army of paperwork gurus who had a different agenda.
Now with Lynn as president if they have made the decision to try and belong to ADI. so be it. they will have to do all those things on the list which involved not speaking to me and not letting me talk to recipients or volunteers or even touch a dog. The fact that I Evan encouraged Bella to fool with the training of ziti... is just the kind of thing that adi does not like.. And they've already had a great deal to say about sandy having two dogs---- both of those things are working
I was never very good at the game of “may I?”
Everybody will be so much better off when the remnants of service dog project move to maine.
