When I met my border collie Gidge, he was already missing his front right leg.  It was July 2020 and he was the last dog left at the county shelter. The staff knew the amputation was recent, but couldn't tell me much else. 

Our vet suspects he was kicked by a horse; we'll never know for sure, but we do know that whoever performed the amputation did a shoddy job and left extra bone behind that Gidge will carry for the rest of his life.

The vet said if he had to guess, Gidge's previous owners had opted for the cheapest option to keep him alive and then dumped him at the shelter. What good to them was a ranch dog with three legs?

He's in advanced agility classes now. I've never had a more active dog than my tripawd. He fords rivers, climbs trees, and runs circles around his four legged friends at the park.  He even caught a squirrel! 

We hike together, backpack together, raft rivers together. He gives hope to those facing amputation that life will be great afterwards. For all his running around, he's also, for the most part, impeccably behaved.

He got his Canine Good Citizen shortly after I adopted him and he's my workplace's official Office Dog. He has a way with children, and we've been asked to volunteer as a therapy dog and handler team by nursing staff at two hospitals and by other connections at a school and a daycare.  

There's only one national organization that will register or certify therapy dogs where we live (no local options), and my question has to do with that. We've done all the training and all the paperwork, paid all the fees, and are set to be evaluated this week, a test which we'll easily pass as it's easier than the Canine Good Citizen, we're well prepared for it, and I volunteered for years with my last dog in this capacity.

However, I'm uneasy about some tripawd discrimination we're experiencing. Our vet has written that Gidge needs a disability accommodation, and I've submitted that request according to this organization's paperwork process.

Gidge needs to be allowed to wear booties on slick flooring. Nothing fancy, just the same type that tripawds.com recommends. 

The organization denied this accommodation, saying that he cannot wear booties only on slick flooring, but must either wear booties constantly or never at all!

This is problematic as booties are a necessity on slick hospital flooring, but are unnecessary on non-slick flooring, and can actually be a hindrance to good body mechanics and movement on the carpeting in daycares and schools.

The organization says they won't go through with the evaluation unless I say that I'll make Gidge wear booties all the time.

Since there aren't other options, and this organization is unwilling to meet our vet's request for an accommodation as that request was written, I'm planning to lie and say, "Sure, he'll wear booties 24/7" and then not actually have him wear them when they're not needed to volunteer.

I'm a bit uneasy about planning to lie, so I'm wondering if you know of any precedents or resources that could help me convince this organization that what they're asking is unreasonable, and that my Gidge should be allowed to wear booties on slick floors and no booties on non-slick flooring.

I'm sure I'm not the only one experiencing this - for lack of a better word - tripawd discrimination, and I'm hoping that with this community's help, I can pressure the evaluating organization to change their rigid policy to be more inclusive.

It might be worth noting that this organization, Pet Partners, claims in their marketing and training materials to be inclusive of tripawds and other types of differently-abled dogs and cats. Yet I find myself needing to advocate for my dog in my communications with them, and failing to get them to accept the accommodation that his vet agrees he needs.

Conversely, the organizations that we do far more rigorous activity through, such as Nosework classes, Advanced Agility, and Canine Good Citizen, never had any issues with meeting any accommodations so that we could participate. Notably, those organizations were all local, and our problems are with a national organization.

Any advice would be most welcome!