foster seeing-eye puppies

We love animals … dogs, cats, birds, squirrels … and we live out in the country so we have an older dog and two cats and all sorts of wild life. I’ve always thought about fostering a dog that would become a service dog in order to help people with disabilities live independently with the help of a buddy. Dogs are great buddies and friends and sometimes seem to have a natural insight to the soul and needs of humans. It would be such a wonderful privelage to foster a puppy to become someone’s lifelong buddy.

I decided to start a second, distinct blog for the puppy walking. It’s at http://puppywalking.blogspot.com/ which may show up on my “main” site, or not. I haven’t figured it all out. I’ll do that later, after a nap.

In the image, Rocky discovers his reflection! “Aren’t I beautiful?” he says.

He turns out to be an 11 week old Lab-Golden mix (you can only tell by the tail so far, he looks just like a Lab). Very charming but a puppy for sure. More when we recover tomorrow.

Well we must be okay folks because Guide Dogs just called back to say that not only are we approved but they have for us an 11 week old yellow Lab male named “Rockwell” (the R litter) and he will arrive here on Friday! Woo hoo! Now we have to put up a fence tomorrow and puppy-proof the house (there will be a distinct “browse line”) and he will be ours for the next year or so. Wow. What a treat.

We had the orientation session yesterday and it looks like the only hitch will be the fenced yard criterion. I have therefore determined that if we are approved except for that one thing, I will get a 4×8 foot dog run that I can put in the back yard and move it if I need to (like for lawn mowing). They come out to the house next week for the inspection. Compared with 15 years ago (when we last did this) it looks like they are stricter on the immunization period. They get shots at 9 weeks and at 16 weeks and then they are fully immunized. Prior to 16 weeks of age, you cannot expose the puppies to any other dogs or where dogs have been so you are house-bound with the puppy for the 8 weeks time between when you get it and when it can socialize with other dogs. I don’t remember it being that long last time.

I did it! I called Guide Dogs and am going in to an orientation session this Friday afternoon. I have been away from it for 15 years after all and things have changed so they do want me to go and talk with them. Also, the person answering the phone said that a lot of people call, interested in the program but then they never follow up so they DO need puppy walkers. AND if they have puppies coming available soon, I might get one sooner than I thought. Now that I have done this, I am SO looking forward to it. And I’m all nervous.

But totally worth it. I got Uma (the “U” litter of 1990) when she was 6 weeks old. Unfortunately, she flunked guide dog school so we got her back and she became our furry Buddha for the next 14 years. She passed away in June and now I am thinking about getting another guide dog puppy who this time, will pass!