it's despicable, and mercifully would never be allowed to happen in this country. Can I just clarify some points re guide dogs though...
Owners and dogs are not matched together for months - they are trained for about eighteen months, firstly by a puppy walker, then by an initial trainer and then a guide dog instructor (all of whom they form bonds with) and then matched with the owner with whom they are trained during a three week training programme by the end of which you will have built up some sort of bond with the dog. The bond does take much longer than that to develop fully, and really does depend from dog to dog.
Dogs that are returned to the organisation by the age of five years are re-assessed and often retrained with new owners. This obviously depends on the dog, the circumstances in which it has previously worked and the reasons why it is returned, but assuming there are no behavioral issues and the dog has previously worked well there is no reason why generally these dogs cannot be retrained and matched with new owners. I know someone who returned her dog to guide dogs because they moved abroad to the middle east where guide dogs just wouldn't be accepted and she was retrained and re-matched within three months. It was funny because I saw the dog out with the trainer a couple of times during her retraining, and this dog, who adored me, would go absolutely mad trying to get to me. but what it's worth bearing in mind at this point is that the dog is already trained, so it doesn't need to be retrained it just generally has to be re-matched with someone else, who then needs to be trained with it.
As for the "dogs grieve" statement, sorry but that is total rubbish, and is just another sign of how we humanise our animals. Dogs will pine for a period but bear in mind that a dog doesn't know that its owner is dead; they just know the owner isn't there. But generally if you take a dog out of that environment it will be fine. Dogs are fickle creatures, as long as someone feeds and walks them they are generally happy. Many guide dog owners are unable to keep their dogs when they retire for many different reasons and these dogs are then rehomed. If this grieving process was as prevalent as people would have us believe then rehoming these dogs just wouldn?t be possible because of how much they would grieve. They don?t ? they really don?t. They go on to have happy lives elsewhere and live out their retirements having walks and just being pet dogs. Oh and no, a dog doesn?t miss being a guide dog when it?s retired ? it is more than happy to become a fireside dog.