Donna:  And airport personnel are under the FAA and DOT. They're not under the TSA's disability branch jurisdiction. And so those questions will need to be addressed at a later time. So I just wanted to put that out there so that people won't be disappointed if Ms. Foster doesn't cover that because that's why. And so now, I would like to turn the meeting over to Maile, Maile George, who most of you know is the alumni chapter coordinator, and she's also the secretary of Paws Around the World. Maile, go ahead and introduce our speakers.

Maile:  Okay. Very good. Thank you. Can people hear me? 

Unidentified:  Yes.

Unidentified:  Yes.

Maile:  You can? 

Unidentified:  Yes. We can.

Maile:  Okay. Very good. Well, thank you very much, Donna, and it's a pleasure to be here. This is actually our very first chapter meeting. We had the interested meeting to kick it off a while ago, and so this is really a positive thing for kicking off this chapter. There's been a lot of interest, and we're just really pleased about that.

I hope I'm recording on my [inaudible 00:01:19] plus, but if I'm not there was a backup on the Centric line, so hopefully that's working as well. 

Our first speaker is Zeb Polacek, and he is actually the [inaudible 00:01:32] of a training center supervisory instructor. We thought it would be interesting to hear about the explosive detection dogs, how they're trained, and all of that sort of thing. Zeb is based at the Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. Welcome, Zeb.

Zeb:  Thank you, Maile. I guess I'll go ahead and take it from here. Again, thank you, Maile and Donna, for having me on the call. It's really nice to be associated with you folks. You sound like a bunch of good people with which we actually share a lot of commonalities between actually what we do, more so than you may think. 

So I guess to start off, I understand that some of you guys may not know exactly what we do and knowing that we have a short amount of time here because we have multiple speakers, I'll give a quick rundown of what we do, and then I'll guess I'll just take it from there.

As Maile was saying the Canine Training Center located at Joint Base San Antonio Lackland Air Force Base. If you know anybody in the military that works with dog trainers, that's what I do is all the co-location training, so Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, all train down there for their explosive detection and narcotic detection and various other special interest type things they do with the canine. So it's a canine training mecca, if you would, for a lot of the Department of Defense, and it just so happens that's where we're located at as well. 

Our particular history for TSA Canine Training Center was back in 1970. I'm not sure if anybody's familiar with that. Back then there was trains. They left from JFK down from Los Angeles, and they had a bomb threat. They turned the train around, and it wound up back at JFK, and they had a canine on ground from the New York City Police Department search it. And 12 minutes before detonation, a canine [inaudible 00:03:35] went over to try to locate this explosive and basically defused the situation before any damage was done, and all the passengers were evacuated. So they received a threshold of credibility and got the ear of  the President at the time, Richard Nixon, and he created the transportation federal entity that was unique to the federal program at the time, and it [inaudible 00:03:59] canine teams. So that's where we were born out of.

And from there we've since grown. We fell under the umbrella of the Federal Aviation Administration, the National Explosive Detection Canine Team program. Then after the tragic events of September 11th, as you guys know, they developed the Department of Homeland Security, and that's where it really took off, where we went from a small number of teams up to where we're at now. It was started off about 56, and now we're at 900 plus teams throughout the mass transit environment. We support, of course, federal locations, state, and local agencies. 

Basically, what we do is train explosive detection canine dogs. We procure a lion's share of them over in Europe from local vendors and take the dogs from basically, you can imagine, green, as we call them, not knowing much of anything. And we foster their internal drive and use those things and purchase certain dogs that have the high drive for the rewards and show the traits that we're looking for. We manipulate those behaviors to basically find explosives. I'm sure that's not too much different than what you guys do as far as certain dogs just have a high drive. They want to work. They want to chase that reward or please the handler. We use those type of drives to create a really good explosive detection dog. 

We put out about 230 dogs a year is what we do. From there we also train not just the dogs we train the handlers at various airports, around world of law enforcement, like I was saying, federal, state, and local. We have a number of core classes that are for explosive detection canine handlers. They come down to Lackland for 10 weeks. They put their life on pause, come down to Lackland for 10 weeks, get to learn how to be a dog handler. Of course, as you guys know, there's a million different ways to train a dog, but we try to teach them the way that's agreed upon for the federal government and what's acceptable in working these dogs out in public environment and what's -- being explosive detection dogs, too, they have to have a very high percentage of find rate. We don't accept a dog sitting when there's nothing there. We expect a lot out of our dogs, so we have a really high standard.

In order to achieve that standard, not only do we train the dogs and we train the handlers that come to the course, but we do annual tests on each team every year out in these different locations. So it requires a lot of travel, but it helps us keep the quality of our dogs. So I would say, in closing, as far as what we do, produce the dogs, train the [inaudible 00:07:00] for the 10-week course. 

Something new that we've been doing here recently over the last few years is the passenger screening canines. So if you've seen a dog actually sniffing people at the airport, that's the new thing, and that's threat-based, off the evolving threat that we currently are dealing with. So to prevent passengers carrying explosive and things like that, we've started training the dogs to do that. That's a 12-week course for the handler, a very intensive course. We take our dogs, and as you can imagine, to every environment that we can possibly get them into, whether that's airports. Our location here at Lackland, we have upwards of 20 training venues, and when I say training venues, it looks like an airport terminal when you walk into some of these buildings. Rail cars, vehicles, you name it, we try to replicate the mass transit environment the best we can to best not just train our dogs but the handlers exposed to them and just train, train, train, every day, through repetition, classes on canine welfare, transportation, principles of conditioning.

About 35 percent of our school is based out of classroom and 65 percent is field time. We have written tests, various progress checks. So it's not for everybody, but the one good thing about what I love doing is most people that get into this job, they love dogs and they love what they're doing, so we're working with individuals that really want to be there and want to learn the skill set. It's a really unique thing. I'm proud of what we do. I don't know if anybody's got any questions or don't want to take up too much of your time, Maile, so ...

Maile:  I think we might be a little ahead of schedule. Do we have one question from the audience? To unmute, you can go *2.

Zeb:  Great. 

Maile:  Anybody from the audience have a question for Zeb about the Canine Training Center?

Caller 1:  What type of dog do you use?

Zeb:   That's a good question. Yes, her question, if I understood her correctly was what type of dogs do we use. We often get that type of question. And it's not necessarily a specific breed that we use. As you can imagine, we use a number of the sporting breeds, whether it be a Vizsla, Labrador Retriever, German Shorthaired Pointers. We also use German Shepherds, Belgian Malinois, and of course some mixed breed and things like that. We're looking for the traits that we can harness and manipulate into what we do. 

For the passenger screening portion, the dogs that sniff people, we try to stick specifically with sporting breeds because the pointy-eared dogs, the Malinois or the Shepherds, those type of dogs seem to have a presence around passengers that are less likely with the sporting breeds. So the intimidation factor, I guess is what I'm trying to say, isn't as much when you have one of those dogs come up behind and sniff you or you're playing on your cell phone, and they come around and check you out while you're at your gate awaiting to board your plane. So that's specifically what breeds we work with in a nutshell. I hope that answers your question.

Caller 1:  Thank you.

Maile:  That's great. Thank you, Zeb, very much.

Caller 2:  Is there time for one more?

Maile:  Okay. One more.

Caller 2:  I'd like to ask one. What I was going to ask is are the dogs paired with a specific handler, as we are, in teams, one person will use the same dog, or does the dog work with different handlers?

Zeb:  That's a great question. I'm sure we could talk at length forever about the commonalities we have like we started off with. That's probably one of the most important things we do is we get these students down for 10 weeks. And as you can imagine, some have never had a pet dog and some have behavioral degrees. So we try to take this individual that we get from whatever venue, airport, police department or government entity, and we evaluate them over the course of a couple days. We give them a leash. We teach them how to do certain leash commands, and we watch their ability to listen to what we say. We take the physical condition into it, their ability to pick up material, all that type of stuff, and then we take the dogs that we have available for that class. So if we have a class of let's say 12 students and we have 15 dogs, we don't have a lot of wiggle room, so we try to take the best dog and pair it with that handler that we believe will be successful throughout the duration of that dog's career.

That dog will stay with that handler, in an ideal situation, throughout its working career and then retire to that handler ideally. Then that handler would have an option of continuing on, depending on the department's policy, and getting another dog and then continuing on with their career. So I guess, the short answer would be yes, they are paired for that dog's working life. But as you know, sometimes things happen and that doesn't always, is always the case, but that's the ideal situation. They take the dog home, they have a canine cruiser, etc. So that's their buddy. That's their life partner they're meeting.

Maile:  Great. Thanks, Zeb. That sounds really familiar to all of us, that lifetime partner thing. Thank you, again. Our next speaker is Miss Seena Foster. She is from the Disability Branch. She's the manager there. Her bio was quite extensive, but she is the TSA Office of Civil Rights and Liabilities, and there was a lot more on there. So Seena, perhaps it would be better if you gave us your background and told us a little bit about what we should expect when we're interacting with TSA agents.

Seena:  So this is Seena Foster and thank you all very much for allowing me to participate in this call. I will give you an overview about myself and about our branch, but also a couple of the senior policy advisors that I have working with me just so you get a feel for what we do every day. 

I do have a background, a public and private sector background, in civil rights, particularly on the Section 504 delivery of government programs that should be [inaudible 00:13:29] as opposed to the DEO workplace side of the house. My government background has been mostly with the Labor Department, and then I also have had some private sector experience in labor and education and some other places. That all together has spanned about 25 years. I also have a team of equal opportunity specialists, and these folks are really top of the line folks that work every single day handling discrimination complaints that come into our office from the 450 federalized airports that we have where we've got more than 45,000 TSA officers working year-round, every day. 

Part of the Disability Branch's function as equal opportunities specialists, their function is to manage those disability complaints that come in but also to conduct proactive measures, take proactive measures such as conducting training, both in person and webinar based training. They put out a high volume of educational materials, and they also will engage with officers one-on-one, answering questions and so on when they have issues that the different airports. So they do a lot of work every single day, trying to educate and keep folks up to speed. We know that it's an ongoing process, and we do appreciate folks' patience, but we also appreciate folks letting us know [audio cuts out 00:15:02]. Is everybody able to hear me right now? 

Unidentified: Finally.

Unidentified: I think so.

Seena:  Okay. Because there was some kind of a recording that came on. My apologies. In addition to those equal opportunity specialists, I also have two senior policy advisors on staff. One of them, you'll be familiar with. Her name is Susan Buckland, and she has a significant history with TSA in the Civil Rights Office, and then she also has a history working for the Civil Rights Office at the Department of Homeland Security, over at the Labor Department, and the Office of Disability and Employment Policy, and she also has worked in the White House on disability issues. So she has phenomenal experience, and she is TSA's liaison to our disability and medical condition coalition, of which you all are members. 

I also have Dr. Supriya Raman on staff. She's a very recent hire, but she comes with a wealth of both public and private sector experience. She worked at the Federal Aviation Administration, and she was going to try to join this call this evening to be able to give you some insights from that perspective. And she also has private sector experience having worked with the Open Doors Organization and Mr. Eric Lipp, headquartered there in Chicago. 

So I did see the questions that you all had and in anticipation of those, I'm going to answer as many questions as I can. Susan Buckland also took the proactive measure of reaching out to the Department of Transportation. Some of your questions are better suited for them. She tried to get them to join our call tonight, but they weren't available. It was a short notice. They did send me, however, some answers to some of your other questions. So if we can try to get everything answered as completely as we can tonight. 

Just as an overview of the airport experience, for a passenger, it is really one long continuum from the point of leaving the house to getting to the parking lot or the drop off at the curb, going through the ticketing counter at the kiosks there for the airlines, getting through TSA security and getting down to the gate, on the place, and off the plane. That whole process is covered by a variety of federal civil rights laws. However, jurisdiction for each of those pieces of that process is going to fall within different federal agencies. And so that's what was alluded to hear before I started speaking is that TSA's piece of this is at the security checkpoints that you go through.

We also deal with the service animal relief areas, and I'll get into that in just a moment. You're going to have the Federal Aviation Administration and that airport operator, they're going to deal with accessibility issues there coming into the airport, the airport grounds, the configuration of the building, and accessibility in the restrooms, and so on there at the airport. 

The Air Carrier Access Act is your non-discrimination law that applies to the airlines, and that’s going to fall under the Department of Transportation's authority. So that's going to relate to not only coming in and getting your ticketing and getting any kind of assistance from the airline as you enter, but then also dealing with the service animal relief areas, where those are going to be and getting on the plane, issues regarding seating on the plane, and so on. So I'm going to get into those issues here. 

One of the questions that was asked is who should people contact live if problems arise? Susan sent out to you all a number of pieces of information from TSA. If you have issues at the security checkpoint, the TSA is going to be the place that you're going to want to talk to someone. And we have -- not only at the checkpoint itself you could ask for a supervisory TSA officer. You could ask for a passenger support specialist or a transportation stakeholder manager. You can ask for those folks there at the checkpoint itself if you feel like things are not going well for you. 

We also have at TSA what is called the TSA Cares hotline. That is a live person will be answering the phone at multiple hours. I think it's from -- one moment here -- 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m., seven days a week, and there's a phone number. There is an email address, and you can call and get live person while you're there at the checkpoint if you have any questions about the security screening, either what to expect or you want to provide feedback or file a complaint, you can call TSA Cares. The number is in the materials that were sent to you, but I'll give it to you here at 855-787-2227 federal relay 7 11. There's also the email address for that TSA Cares. It's tsacares@tsa.dhs.gov. And again, if you call in, there is a live operator that will answer that call for you. 

They can also answer questions for you about what to expect for travel. So if you want to call in advance of travel, let them know some of the things that you may be concerned about, they can help you understand what to expect when you get to that security checkpoint. 

They can also secure a passenger support specialist for the TSA security checkpoint. So what that is it is a TSA officer who volunteers to take on additional duties of assisting passengers with disabilities or medical conditions through that security screening process. If you call TSA Cares in advance of your travel, you give them your flight information, you would have a passenger support specialist there at the entrance to the security checkpoint waiting for you on the day of your travel. If you do not have time to call that passenger support specialist, I mean the TSA Cares line ahead of time to get that passenger support specialist, you can also ask for a passenger support specialist there at the checkpoint. 

Anybody going through security screening at TSA has the option of screening by technology, or you can opt out of that and get a pat down procedure. As you are with guide dogs, there are three options for going through the walk through metal detector. You can go through first, followed by the guide dog. The guide dog can go through first, followed by you. Or you can go through together. If either you or the guide dog or both alarm, then a pat down procedure would be conducted on either you or the guide dog, as appropriate. No one should ever ask you to remove the harness of your guide dog. If that does ever happen, we really strongly encourage you to contact us through Susan Buckland, or you may file a complaint with us, and we will work with that airport to conduct some additional training and education for that airport. 

So if you're talking about problems at that TSA checkpoint, then that's going to be the answer. You'll call TSA Cares if you have issues, or you could ask for a passenger support specialist or a supervisor at the checkpoint. 

When I talked to the Department of Transportation, they let me know that if you have an issue with the airline either at the ticketing stage or whether you're onboarding the flight, offboarding the flight, seating while on the flight, they said that each airline must have a compliance resolution official on duty at all hours that that airline operates flights. And so you could ask for that complaints resolution official, if this is an airline related concern, and you would have somebody that you could talk to either in person on the premises or by telephone with a TTY or relay line similarly effective technology available to you. So that's going to be for the Department of Transportation provided mandated service for airline issues would be the complaints resolution official. For TSA it's going to be at the security checkpoint. It's going to be the supervisory TSA officer or the passenger support specialist. 

The next question that I got was how can airline personnel assist if the guide dog has an accident. I think as we try to move towards getting relief areas in the sterile parts of the airports, that's going to mitigate some of these concerns. But if your guide dog does have an accident in the airport, the best thing is to contact either the airline or one of the airport operator folks and ask them for housekeeping or cleaning services. So you will probably notice as you go through the airport, you can hear folks changing out trash cans or see folks changing out trashcans. Those folks will also do the cleanup services if you need to ask for that.

So with regard to the third question that I got, who is typically in charge of constructing indoor relief areas at airports. So here, the Department of Transportation is the group that you would want to talk to, and they actually gave me a response for this question. And they said that their regulations impose requirements on airlines and airports to cooperate with each other to provide animal relief areas. The entity that is in charge of constructing those relief areas would vary from airport to airport. So they recommended that you consult the Federal Aviation Authority on that question. I'm going to, at the very end of my presentation, I'm going to ask if Dr. Supriya Raman is on because she was with the FAA, and she may have some very helpful information on that score.

The fourth question is if blind passengers want to obtain a pass for the TSA, where do they have to go to register with TSA, and when they reach the security area, who checks the pass? So, if you're referring to a gate pass, which is given to a traveling companion who is not actually going on the -- I'm sorry -- a companion who is not actually going on to travel with the passenger. They're just coming to help get everything through security, get folks to the gate, and so on. That gate pass would be issued by the airline, and then you would go through, as the companion, you would go through TSA security screening just as any other passenger would, but you would have a gate pass as opposed to a boarding pass with the ID. 

The fifth question is are there any rules that state that two blind people and their guide dogs cannot sit in the same row because there are only four oxygen masks, which is a problem if there are three passengers in the seat and or if a dog occupies the middle seat area it poses a tripping hazard? So again, this question would be a Federal Aviation Administration question, and it also -- there's some interplay with the Department of Transportation. The Department of Transportation folks gave me a response here saying that when they wrote the regulations, those regulations were written to take safety into account when providing certain accommodations. 

With regard to service animals, the service animal is permitted to accompany a passenger with a disability at any seat in which the passenger sits unless the animal obstructs the aisle or another area that must remain unobstructed, such as the exit aisles where you need emergency evacuation. So usually the Department of Transportation says that usually this issue arises when the service animal is too large to sit in the space immediately in front of the passenger with the disability. 

If the service animal cannot be accommodated at the seat location of the passenger with the disability who is using the animal, then the airlines are required to offer the passenger the opportunity to move the animal to another seat location, if that is available on the aircraft. If no alternative space is available, then the airline folks should speak with the other passengers to find a passenger in an adjacent seat who is willing to share foot space with the animal or find some other way to allow that service animal to travel with the passenger. And the Department of Transportation concludes by saying only if there's no alternative available to enable the passenger to travel with the service animal in the cabin on that flight should the airline offer options such as transporting a service animal in the cargo hull or transporting the passenger and service animal on a later flight that has more room. So that was the answer to the last question.

I'll end on this note. With regard to service animal relief areas, the only involvement of TSA is to make sure that wherever that airport decides to place that service animal relief area beyond that sterile -- in that sterile area, beyond the security checkpoint, TSA's only interest in making sure that there is no access to that sterile relief area unless folks have passed through the TSA security checkpoint. So that's what TSA is going to be looking at, and the airports are being [audio cuts out 00:30:09] access to that area unless they come through a security checkpoint. 

[Feedback and background noise 00:30:28] I'm getting a lot of feedback from someone. I’m not sure. I really can't understand what -- I don't know if somebody asked me something. 

Caller 3:  Hello?

Seena:  Yes, this is Seena. 

Caller 3:  I just was able to get on the line. This is [inaudible 00:30:50]. 

Maile:  Please mute your line with *2.

Caller 3:  Star what was that again?

Maile:  Star 2.

Caller 3:  I'm trying to do it with an iPhone.

Maile:  Sorry, Seena.

Seena:  That's okay. I don't know if either Susan Buckland or Dr. Raman are on. If either of them are on, I think Dr. Raman -- she came from the FAA and may have some FAA insights to share with you. And if she's on and would like to share some additional information, I encourage her to do so as well, so that you all get as much as possible out of this call.

[Background conversation 00:31:43]

Supriya:  Seena, this is Supriya. I'm on.

Seena:  Oh, great. If you want to share with them any FAA initiatives or anything that you'd like [crosstalk 00:31:54].

Supriya:  Sure. This is Supriya, and I'm with the TSA, and as Seena mentioned, I was at the FAA, Federal Aviation Administration a while ago. What the Federal Aviation Administration has done, developed for the guidance for the airport operators typically these are the groups that [background noise 00:32:17]. 

Maile:  Oh, dear. Hold on just a second. We're getting a lot of background noise. Please mute your line because -- I think it's a gentleman. Mute your line with *2. 

[Background conversation 00:32:34]

Maile:  It will tell you whether or not you're muted or not muted when you do it correctly. Star 2. Okay. Let's give it another shot.

[Background conversation 00:32:57]

Unidentified:  They're not muted. 

Maile:  No, they’re not. Okay. Let's everybody press *2 right now if you're muted or unmuted. 

[Background noise and conversation 00:33:13] 

Alice:  Maile, it's Alice. Is there a way for you to mute all lines?

Maile:  I would, but then I'd have to mute the speakers.

Alice:  Okay. I'm muting now.

[Background noise 00:33:34]

Maile:  Oh gosh. I think someone's on public transportation and they don't realize that their phone is still on. Oh, now we're better. No, we're not. 

[Background noise 00:33:53]

Maile:  There. I think they muted themselves now. Thank you for whoever just muted themselves. Please continue. I'm sorry about that.

Supriya:  Supriya from the TSA again. I was just explaining that the Department of Transportation came up with the new rules about service animal relief areas in the sterile portions of the airport. And what the Federal Aviation Administration has done is developed advisory circulars, which is guidance for the airport operators. And typically, it's the airport operators that are the ones who find the space within the airport to build the service animal relief areas. So the guidance talks about what the size of these service animal relief areas should be, what the surface should be, and what they should include. The guidance as far as FAA folks have told me is that the guidance should be published in the Federal Register in a couple months for public comment. So please be on the lookout for it. So it will give you information about what kind of guidance FAA is giving airport operators to work on building these areas. And it will be a good opportunity for you to give comments on whether the language that FAA has put together will work or will not. 

As you know from the rules, airport authorities are required to work with service animal relief organizations, guide dog organizations to find out what works in their particular airport and of course with the approval from TSA. So that's pretty much what I wanted to update you on about the service animal relief areas.

Sarah:  May I ask an unrelated question really fast? This is Sarah in Boston. I used to be a CRO for an airline. And as a service dog handler and as a CRO, I've seen it on both sides where a service dog handler has to leave the sterile area to take their dog outside in a layover situation for international travel and then comes back and can't get through TSA in time to catch their flight. I have seen airports and airlines have discrepancies between who handles the re-accommodation and how that gets handled. Is there a policy being formed to handle that when there's not a service dog relieving area within the sterile part of the airport and the passenger had to leave and come back through TSA to relieve their service animal?

Unidentified:  I believe that is what this is going to address and when is it mandatory for the service relief areas within the sterile area to be done?

[Background conversation 00:37:18]

Maile:  Did we lose our -- Seena? Oh, dear.

Seena:  Yes, this is Seena Foster. Can you hear me?

Maile:  Yes, we can now.

Seena:  Oh, okay. Sorry about that. I'll answer the first question, and then I'll ask Supriya to answer the second question because she has that FAA background, which is going to be really useful here.

The first question is if you have to leave the sterile area to relieve your service animal and then come back. You've got a layover and you've got a short connecting time, what can we offer here at TSA to help you get through the security screening faster? Really, the biggest thing that we can offer at this time is that you can ask to move to the front of the security screening line. You can let them know, "I've been through once. I had to go relieve my service animal," and you can ask to move to the very front of the line. And they should be moving you up to the front of the line so that you can get through the security screening without waiting through the whole line. 

Unidentified:  Really?

Unidentified:  Sounds reasonable.

Unidentified:  Yep. That's good.

Seena:  And I think, Supriya, there was a second part of that question. And I can't remember what the full question was, but I think --

Sarah:  Specifically who handles, or how is re-accommodation for passengers who miss their connection through service animal relieving areas. When are the relieving areas supposed to be completed and/or what are the re-accommodation policies for that?

Unidentified:  Good question.

Supriya:  This is Supriya. From the way the regulations are written, the airports have two years to develop their plan for their service animal relief area. If they plan on not having one, they need to have documentation available as to why they have decided on not having one. It could be one of those origin destination kind of airport where you do not have that much of the layover traffic, and people are either coming in or out of the airport. That's their destination or their place of origin. It's fine, but as the speaker mentioned -- Sarah, I believe -- from about stayovers, typically the way the regulations are written that the entity that's taken on the payment of providing you the transportation would be the one responsible to ensure that you have the access to go in and out of the sterile areas, so that's the air carrier or the airlines you're traveling with. 

[Background conversation 00:40:15]

Unidentified:  Somebody's not muted and I'm having trouble hearing.

Maile:  Please mute your lines *2.  Please continue, Supriya. Sorry about that.

Supriya:  It's fine, I hope that helped answer the question, Sarah.

Sarah:  That was good. It did.

Maile:  We're not actually taking questions from the floor at this point. We're going to move on to our next speaker. And then if there's time at the end, we can take some questions. I hope that's okay. Okay. Our next speaker -- were we done, Seena, or do we have Susan Buckland on the line?

Seena:  So this is Seena. I'm done with mine. I don't know if Supriya has anything else, and if Susan's on, I don't know if she has something. But right now, I've gone through the questions that were posed.

Maile:  Beautiful. Thank you so much. And there may be some questions at the end. So if you can hang with us, that would be awesome. I don't think Susan -- I haven't heard her pipe up. So I think we'll move on to our third and final speaker and that is Melanie Brunson. And she is, as you all probably know, the Guide Dogs for the Blind Alumni Association Board of Directors President. She's also the Past Executive Director of the American Council of the Blind, and she's currently the Director of Government Relations with the Blinded Veterans of America. Welcome, Melanie.

Melanie:  Thank you. Am I off mute?

Maile:  Yes, you are.

Melanie:  Oh, good. Okay. Thank you, Maile. And I want to say I really appreciate the folks from the government coming tonight to be with us. You've given us a lot of good information. I would like to take a bit of a liberty though because I think -- I'm not absolutely certain -- but I think that one of the questions that you were asked, Seena -- is that your name -- I'm sorry, Ms. Foster -- related to getting a pass from TSA. And I'm not absolutely certain, but I think the way I interpreted that question was to not refer to a gate pass, but to refer to the expedited screening that was in effect for a while. I'm wondering if it still is, and if you wouldn't mind taking just a minute to comment on the status of that. Because for a while TSA was really encouraging people with disabilities to participate in the frequent flier -- you know what I mean. I can't think of the term for it, but it was a lot of frequent fliers were eligible for it. Then you got to go through the special line, and you didn't have to take your computers out of your bag and things like that. Is that still in operation?

Seena:  This is Seena. And in answer to your question, the TSA pre-check program is in operation. The frequent flier piece of it that you mentioned, there was a point in which the airlines could place you in that TSA pre-check status just because of the frequency of your travel with them. Whether or not that continues, I'm less certain. But I do know that the TSA pre-check program is continuing, that Susan Buckland did send the TSA pre-check enrollment information to Maile and Donna to disseminate as they saw fit. And I'll be more than happy to answer questions down the road about that, but yes, it is still in place.

Melanie:  Okay. Thank you. Because I'm asking because I had heard of something a while ago about how it was being investigated or something because there were some people who tried to get contraband through using those lines. There was some question in a lot of people's minds as to whether it was going to continue. So thank you. 

I was asked to talk about some practical things with regard to , such as requirements for international travel with a guide dog and things like that. So let me just run through a couple of things. We don't have a lot of time. A lot of the questions that I was asked can be answered together. 

There were several questions about how to get information about what the requirements are for taking a dog to another country. There are a couple of ways to do that. The United States Department of Agriculture actually is a good source of information about what is required for various places. They are the ones that oversee a lot of the testing that dogs have to go through in order to get into a lot of foreign countries. So they have a lot of that information, and you can get it from the Department of Agriculture. You can get a lot of the forms and information about where to get the titer tests and things like that or what is done to process those once your vet gives your dog the test, so the U.S. Department of Agriculture. 

It's also a good idea to contact, if you have additional questions that they don't have the answers to, the consular office for the country that you want to go to. They can help to give you information that is more specific to the country's legal system, things like what are your rights as a guide dog owner when you get there, what kind of access laws do they have and those sorts of things. 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's information primarily concerns the health and medical measures that you need to take, things like what shots do you need, how far in advance should you get them, and what sort of certificates do you need. There is a international health certificate that many countries require and you --

Maile:  - Melanie, excuse me for just a second. Is everyone hearing that echo in the background?

Unidentified:  Yes. Mm-hmm.

Maile:  Okay. I think either someone -- it's a woman, it sounds like, is saying exactly what Melanie is saying, and we can hear you. So if you please press *2. There. Okay. 

Melanie:  Okay. Yeah, I think somebody what taking notes into a recorder, and that's fine to do, but just please mute. What was I saying? Oh, the international health certificate, your vet can fill that out for you and sign it. But many countries around the world do require it. Some don't. Some tell you that they want it and then never ask for you for it. But the place where it will be asked for, if they require it, is when you go to customs. Now sometimes, I have had the airline ask me for it before I left. That doesn't happen often, but it does happen occasionally, but the primary place where you would need that is when you go to customs, the same time you give your passport, that health certificate functions as your dog's medical passport, so to speak, to prove that you got all the tests that they require and that it has its appropriate vaccinations and all of that sort of thing. So it's at immigration where you would need to do that.

Some countries do still have quarantine, and so it is a good idea to check with the consular offices for the country that you're going to to see whether or not -- what the rules are in that country. 

I was asked about contacting guide dog organizations in countries that you're proposing to visit. I have never seen a recommendation on that. I think it varies a lot from country to country, partly based on how popular guide dogs really are. Because in some places, there aren't that many, and so there aren't really active guide dog organizations. However, in other countries there are. And the advantage to trying to find those and contacting them is that they can give you a lot of tips about things that you hadn't even thought about as well as letting you know what the access laws are and what to expect with regard to taxis and restaurants and what kinds of problems you'll run into and the practical side of living in or traveling around in a country that you've never been to before. 

I would suggest to people that even before you do that that you contact other guide dog user groups and ask them -- the ones here in this country -- to find out if someone among their membership has been to a country. I suppose people do, every once in a while, put a little question in alumni news that says, "I'm looking for the people in my class. Would you contact me if you were in class, whatever? My phone number is," or whatever. You could theoretically -- Theresa may kill me, but it just occurs to me that you could do the same thing if you were going to Iceland or Poland or somewhere if, if, if, if you know far enough in advance. 

Because I would suggest to people that if you're thinking about traveling, you need to start finding out what they requirements are for the country you want to go to as much as six months ahead of time because it can take three to six months to get titer tests, for instance, processed and get the results back to you. There are a number of countries that do require those. So you want to make sure you have plenty of time if you want to take your dog to do all of the things that you would need to do in taking the dog to the country.

The other thing, we were talking about relieving areas in our airports, and your ability to get at those is going to vary a lot too from country to country. What I can tell you, and this is based on my limited experience, is that you don't get to go outside until you've been through customs. So you need to figure that it's going to be a while, ever after you get off the plane before you get your meet and assist and before you get to customs and get through the line and get out to somewhere where you can legitimately say I need to go outside quick please. So keep that in mind when you're thinking about the number of hours that your dog is going to go without having an opportunity to relieve. 

Somebody asked me a good question which was what do you to do prevent accidents for long distance travel? And the thing that I have done when I have done overseas travel is one, make sure that you, one way or another, leave early enough that you can get your dog out to a relieving area shortly before you board. And then two, I have on occasion, not always, but on occasion -- one, I don't feed and water, even if I do that for domestic travel, I never do it before leaving on an overseas trip. No water for several hours. No food for several hours, depending on whether you're leaving in the morning or the night. If I'm leaving in the morning, my dog didn't have anything after the night before. If I left in the evening, she did get it early in the morning. But it depends on the time of day, but make sure you've got a good six, eight hours so that there are plenty of opportunities to relieve. 

If you're really, really worried about it, there are some doggy diapers kind of like Depends kind of things. I've forgotten what they're called, and I didn't get a change to look them up, but I have used those in the past with one of my dogs when we flew because she had some bladder issues. So they are available. Someone at the school told me about them. So you can probably find out from training from the support center about what those would be if that's of interest to you.

Let's see. One of the things that people ask me about is dog food. I know that there are some countries -- in fact, some of Guide Dog's Canadian students have had issues because I don't recall whether it was coming or going, but apparently there are some issues with taking dog food into or out of Canada. And I suspect there would be issues in other places. Sometimes it depends on what the nature of the dog food is. If you use meat products, for instance, that are canned, there are a lot of places where you're going to have trouble with those. If you use kibble, it might be a little more of a risk you can take. 

But when you're thinking about traveling, one of the questions you do want to ask is can I bring my dog's food in because there are some places where you can't. And if you can't, the only thing you can do, then, is go to a store and buy some dog food because you will have to get it in the country, and you will be limited to what's available unless you can go on the internet and make arrangements with a vet in that country head of time. That would be an option as well if you need specialized dog food. You might be able to, either yourself or with your vet's assistance, find a vet in that country who would be willing to meet up with you and give you their country's version of the dog food that you would use. But that can be a challenge if you're not allowed to take your dog food in. So I would suggest that people look into that. I have been to Europe and never had the issue, but I know that there are issues. Some of the folks at Guide Dogs have told me that they have had issues. And I know Canada is one of the places where there are problems. And with mad cow disease concerns and things like that, it's a good idea to check. 

The other issue that I was asked about was if you're traveling alone, what do you do with your dog when you need to go to a restroom. That's always a challenge, and there are probably as many different answers for that are there are restrooms. One of the things that someone suggested to me that has worked out pretty well on an airplane, when you don't want to use the -- when you can't take, obviously, those little airplane restrooms, sometimes you just can't avoid using them, and there isn't room for a dog in it. So what I started to do, at the suggestion of a fellow GDB alum, was putting the leash through the seatbelt in my seat, so that you've effectively made a tie down for your dog to your seat. And that way, you can get up and leave the dog at the seat, put him on down, and tell him to stay, and then go to the restroom. And that way you shouldn't have to worry about the dog doing more than sitting up and going where'd she go, where'd she go, looking for you to come back. But it won't go sauntering down the aisle.

As far as public restrooms go, there are no easy answers because as anybody who's traveled outside their home anywhere these days knows, there's so many different restroom styles. Throughout Europe and in this country, most facilities that I've been in do have at least one fairly large, accessible restroom. And so you can take a dog into a restroom that has those sorts of facilities. That isn't true in all parts of the world. So one of the things that you might want to do when you start asking people, ask folks questions about to what extent there are wheelchair accessible restrooms or restrooms where people can take babies to change and things like that so that you can get an idea that there are big restrooms available in the place that you want to go to.

That there again is another good reason to contact disability advocacy organizations and/or guide dog user groups in the place that you're thinking about going to. If you can't find a guide dog user group, a disability group would be able to answer things like that and would probably even be able to answer your questions about guide dog access laws and what sorts of barriers might exist in the place that you want to go to that you should be aware of because they live there. So disability rights groups or disability advocacy groups, blogs on the internet are a good place to find a lot of those kinds of things. 

And also the Department of State does have, as well as the Department of Justice, does have, some information. Both of their websites have some information about international travel as related to access issues. I would suggest that you also roam around a little bit on their website to see if you can find information about access laws and any special things that you need to be aware of as you consider traveling somewhere. 

I think that covers all of the things that I was specifically asked to talk about. So Maile, I'm going to shut up and let you have the meeting back. 

Maile:  Okay. Well, thank you, Melanie. And thank you to Zeb and Supriya and to Seena. It's been a lot of really good information. Now, I don't know if any of you want to share your contact information if there are questions after we end this call in a few minutes. If you are willing and could send me your email addresses, that's M as in Mary, george@guidedogs.com or -- we've been corresponding by email, so you also have my email there. And let me know what your direct email address is if you're willing to take questions. I’ll go ahead and post those on the Paw Around the World list so that we'll all have those. And I really want to thank everyone -- yes?

Seena:  This is Seena. Very quickly, I think Susan sent you some TSA documents on pre-check, notification cards, and you'll go ahead and post those also?

Maile:  I'll make sure -- yeah -- I'll make sure that anyone who wants those gets those, for sure. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for reminding me.

Seena:  Yeah, okay because those also have my contact information on there.

Maile:  Oh, good. Okay. Yes. Okay. So I can find it there. Beautiful. Okay. Well, thank you again everyone for dialing in for this really important information about traveling with your guide dog. And to all of our fabulous speakers, it was really interesting and well done. Thank you all so much.

[Background conversation 01:04:24]

Unidentified: Thank you, Maile.

Unidentified: Thank you for having us.

Unidentified:  And thank you for all the -- I really enjoyed your comments. 

[Background conversation 01:04:36]

[End of recording]