Cost Comparisons of Guide Dog Training

Agnė Šimaitienė from Lithuania, a country with no guide dogs, had carried out a research project on costs of guide dog training in various European countries. She had sent an email with 36 questions to 74 EGDF or IGDF member schools in 28 different countries and had received 30 completed replies from 12 countries.

She presented her findings in a series of slides but acknowledged that a lack of response from major training schools had limited the value of the research. There had been no replies from France, Germany or Spain, and the UK was shown as training three dogs a year, when the actual number was between 4,000 and 5,000.

Marijan Sesar said that her Croatian data was not accurate; if she had insufficient data from a country, she should have been wary about generalising about that country.