Thankful

A year ago, we looked like this:

And then a lot of things happened, and now we look like this:



Terence is back from Training for just a few days. His forever family is out of the country for another week and it didn't take much convincing to get me to agree to foster him until they are ready. Cassie and her husband John were lifesavers and broke Terence out of the kennels last Thursday and brought him down to Fresno on Friday night so I drove up and picked him up Saturday morning.

I'd just like to thank Cassie again for doing this - it never ceases to amaze me just how wonderful it is to be a part of the Guide Dogs community. While we all have a singular mission to raise guide dogs for the blind, the puppy raising community is extremely powerful as a cohesive force in its own right and it is an honor and a privilege to be considered part of it.

Terence will be off to his new home in just over a week where he will bring another wonderful family into the guide dog community, and then Cancun will be here just a week later. I will report more later on my 2 weeks with 2 career changes, but there is cuddling to be done and the clock is ticking!

Highs and Lows

It's well known to those in the guide dog community that these dogs can make or break our days. We celebrate their successes and share in their difficulties as well.

You can well imagine my elation on Thursday when my leader called to share the wonderful news - after six whole weeks of phase reports showing Terence in phase 1 of guide work training, Terence jumped all the way up to phase 5 - halfway through! Whoop! It was quite a relief to know he was working his way through training after all, and not stagnant.

Finally I had a reason to go through my puppy raising manual and read about all of the phases of training, something I hadn't allowed myself to do - don't want to count my chickens before they hatch, you know? Phase five consists of preliminary guide work training where the pup is asked to demonstrate all the commands it has learned thus far. I knew there was a lot at stake.

I guess it wasn't a total shock when I got a call from my leader yesterday. I knew as soon as I saw who was calling: Terence has been career changed.

Oof.

As a pup in training, Terence had many many GREAT days where he rose to the occasion and was flawless. Easy to handle, responsive, confident. A raiser's dream. But there were other days where working was hard for him - he would balk at things, refuse surfaces that hadn't bothered him before, ever, or would startle at noises that he didn't bat an eyelash at before. If something startled him, he was on edge for the rest of the outing. He had ongoing intermittent fear of children - like his brain could not process the fact that some humans are small and have tiny hands and high voices and they can look you straight in the eyes because they are just your height. It broke my heart on days like this and I became hyper-aware of any situations where children were present. How to handle him best to decrease his stress level, what to do if approached by a child, how to make him feel most secure. On some days though he would reach over and lick a child in the face, tail wagging. I knew with his inconsistencies he may have a hard time with the responsibility of guide work, but at every evaluation his good side shined and he continued in the program. It helped that he was a wonderful goofy happy bright boy and highly food motivated.

When it came time for guide work testing, though, it was his sensitivity that put an end to his working career.

SUMMARY: Terence is an energetic dog who does best with regular exercise. He has displayed noise sensitivity throughout training, starting with the guillotine doors in the kennel to reacting to loud truck noises. He can display dog and bird distraction and can require effective handling at those times. Generally, he is a very sweet dog to be with and was progressing very well in obedience and guidework training. He was always appropriate with other dogs. Terence loves to play with toys and fetch is a favorite game of his. He is a great dog and we will miss him.

RELEASE REASON(S): 21301 - BEH: Fearful Behavior Environment Generalized

I'm so proud of him for making it this far. He will have a wonderful life as a pet, playing FETCH apparently! I can't say I'm not heartbroken that my time with him has finally come to an end - but this is the right decision for him.

There will be no more bad days and his raiser I couldn't ask for anything more.

Thank you/Five weeks

THANK YOU first and foremost to everyone who read/commented on my anger-fueled rant from earlier this week. I definitely felt the internet's collective love from your responses and I really appreciate that! I can't wait to run into Albert the Doberman owner again but it will most likely have to wait another week as I'm missing tomorrow night's game.

I'd also like to say THANK YOU to Heather and Carrie whose stories in response to my request for creativity from two weeks ago are highly entertaining. If you haven't read them, go here and enjoy. And if you want to add your story, by all means go ahead.

Terence is still holding strong in phase one! Five weeks now - he must be going for some sort of record. Lindsey said that Edie was in phase 1 for seven weeks and she's now in phase 10 of 10. We'll see if he holds out to take the phase 1 record from her...

Here's a random picture of Terence and (now cc'ed) pup "Mollie" on the day I met him:



And here's a quick recap of what I've been up to during Terence's phase one tenure:

I attended many Dodgers games and then they lost to the stinking Phillies in the playoffs, boo.

I went to Denver to visit Kimmie and got to meet Cohen, my friend Laurie's newest adition. I heard I had been assigned a male "C" puppy shortly after Cohen was born so of course Laurie and I had fun thinking of what would happen if the pup's name was Cohen too. I've heard stories of raisers who receive pups with the same name as parents/spouses/children and everything tends to work out but it still lends itself towards potential hilarity. In our local club we have both a raiser and pup named Janice and their names have to be supplemented with their respective species in common conversation when confusion is possible. Janice-the-person has puppysat for Janice-the-puppy several times, in fact, which I actually didn't remember until I started writing this. How funny!


After I got back from Denver I had the immense pleasure of puppy sitting Sparkle for a few days. Sparkle is Spike's sister and has the same exact eyes as her mom Courtney who was raised in my club:



Sparkle is above, Courtney is below...


After Sparkle I had adaptable energetic Alisa again for a few days - she is quite striking with her light brown eyes.


After Alisa I went to Chicago to visit my mom's family including my Grandma who will turn 93 in December. My cousins Brett and Luke (whose births I both remember and so the fact that they're both in college now makes me feel incredibly old) and I went to visit Grandma and while they pulled out all her photo albums looking for vintage pictures of her '78 Chevy Impala which they are currently restoring, I looked through the same albums and saw pictures I'd never seen - of myself, my dad, brother...pretty much everyone in my family. The best moment was when I found a picture of my mom's first boyfriend and my grandma instantly told me all about him - smart boy but too scrawny for my mom. Ha. Lots of fodder for teasing my mom.

Later on the same trip I went to Louisville to see one of my favorite people in the world get married to his college sweetheart


Then made is back to California (that trip took me to 4 different Midwestern states by way of 6 plane rides, two of which were delayed, one of which had AWFUL turbulence, for a total of of 15 hours in a plane and several more in airports over the course of 4 days) to enjoy Cancun's first sleepover with me while his starter raiser went out of town for a night.

Cancun is an awesome puppy. He has an adorable reverse widow's peak thing going on - you can sort of see it in this picture - and it's very distinctive. I hope it stays as he matures because it's really cute. He's like Eddie Munster.


That brings us up to this week! I am puppy sitting for Janice for two weeks while her raiser is on vacation and with all the puppies that have been here recently I have occasionally run through all of them trying to find her name. Hero-Terence-Sparkle-Alisa-Cancun-whateveryournameis! "Sit" is surprisingly ineffective but Janice is a wonderful puppy and just looks at me patiently and does as she's told.

I'm going to spend the rest of her time with me daydreaming of ways I could convince her raisers to let me finish raising her but I think I have a better shot of winning the Boston Marathon while hopping backwards on one foot, ha.

I guess they kind of like her too.

Leash Laws? What leash laws?

Well.

I had an interesting experience at my softball game today with a gentleman who comes to games with a male Doberman he lets wander around off leash. I've had one encounter with the dog before when I had Terence where I had to put Terence behind me and stand between myself and the dog before the owner called him off. (I know this is not necessarily what you're supposed to do in these situations if there's going to be a fight, but anyway, that's what I did).

Dobermans are considered a dangerous dog breed and based on other encounters I've had with "dangerous breeds," I'm not planning on putting my pup's future in danger just because some jerk can't leash his dog. I've seen dog bites end the careers of more than one guide - and it just takes one bite to potentially waste a year of my work raising a pup, 2-3 months of the trainer's work and donor money, and a month out of the life of a visually impaired individual to train at school with this dog.

I didn't have a dog with me tonight (thank goodness) but nevertheless the Doberman wandered over and started sniffing my softball stuff as soon as I sat down in the vicinity of his owner. I was there with a friend who was a bit apprehensive about the dog (seriously those things are scary looking) and so I politely asked the man to leash his dog as its the law and he was bothering my friend. He joked with me people wear leashes, not dogs! but when I insisted, his tone immediately changed and he seemed quite offended. He asked me where I was from - what kind of city grows a person like you?? And when I assured him I was raised in a city that also has leash laws, he stormed off after his dog.

When you envision all this happening, by the way, it would make my life a lot better if you picture this owner without a few of his front teeth. And maybe wearing overalls with a hole in the seat. I'm not saying he looked anything like this necessarily, just that is makes the story more gratifying. For me.

Anyway.

There was a young lady about 8 or 9 years old in front of me who must have known the dog and owner and tried to reassure me that his dog would never hurt anyone. I briefly explained that the law states (as do many signs in the park) that dogs must be on leashes as some dogs are aggressive and frankly it's inappropriate to let your dog wander into other peoples' business. She nodded a confused acceptance and turned back around.

I did call the local police department to let them know this was the second time I've had problems with this individual and I swear to you this was the infuriating information the dude gave me:
1. he could not help me because it was after 5 pm and all animal control officers had gone home.
2. if I was still upset, I should go to another park.

Helpful.

I walked back over to where my team was sitting and overheard the dog's owner talking to the young girl who had been sitting next to me and her friend, telling them not only what an awful person I am, but also that I am ugly and stupid.

What a class act.

At this point he'd leashed his dog and so I went over to thank him and make amends while the girls were still standing there. After offering my olive branch to him he accused me of hating animals, berating him in front of the little girls (well in all fairness he said debating, but who am I to correct him, being so ugly and stupid) and then said sweetheart why don't you go warm up for your game.

I thanked him for leashing his dog, introduced myself and told the girls that even though he said some not so nice things, he did the right thing in the end and that's what's important. I walked away from the situation as the bigger person and hopefully made him look like a jackass.

I'm still fuming, though, and feel absolutely powerless in this situation. It doesn't seem right - what exactly is the point of leash laws if law enforcement blatantly disregards them?

Signing off,

your ugly, stupid, animal hating correspondent Mandy - pictured with good friend Kim, who has, of course, been ticketed several times in Denver for having her labradoodle off leash near her house. Go figure.

Phase Report Thursday

And Terence is in phase 1 for the 4th week in a row.

With the new fast track program, he should be close to halfway through by now! Most of the pups from his recall group are in phase 3..

Who can come up with the best story as to how he's spending his time not progressing through training?

Extra points for use of unexpected literary genres, magic realism, etc.

Spotted in Madrid

You know your puppy raising has impacted your friends when they travel abroad and know exactly how excited you will be that they spotted a puppy in training from another country, so they accost strangers in foreign countries and take pictures of their dogs.

A friend of mine just got back from Madrid, where she spotted this pup, from Fundacion Once Del Perro Guia.




Isn't he cute? I don't know why but I think Future Guide Dog looks way cooler in Spanish than in English.

And I love that the basic style of the service dog leash is apparently standard worldwide.

Well, now that it’s been over a week and I am still limping from last Saturday’s adventure in Terence’s recall, I suppose I can share the day’s story.

I slept at my mom’s house on Friday night before turn in – my mom has been an integral part of Terence’s year with me, always willing to puppy sit when I so nicely ask her if I she wouldn’t mind watching him while I go out and do puppy inappropriate things, willing to have him tear around her yard at top speed, even before he learned that ripping out her potted plants is a big no-no. (Sorry mom). Two of my good friends and my older brother and his girlfriend came to Mom’s to join Terence’s last vigil and turned what could have been a very sad last-night-together pity party into a fun happy evening.

Terence and I camped out on mom's living room floor Friday night, Terence stole my pillows and in the morning shoved his hard plastic jolly ball in my face and wagged his sail so hard that it moved his entire butt. He was excited to go to college.

After I gathered all of Terence’s things and fed him I went out to the garage to grab something cold to drink from the outside fridge. I felt something on the bottom of my foot and did what I usually do in this situation – I wiped the bottom of my right foot on the top ridge of my left foot to dislodge whatever was there. It felt funny so I looked down and was watched a brown smudge on my left foot quickly turn into a leaky faucet of blood. I’d stepped on the blunt end of a piece of glass and inadvertently sliced the sharp part of the glass across my foot.

I spent the next 20 minutes watching Terence play at Mom’s for the last time while holding a paper towel firmly to my foot to try to stop the bleeding, and I’ve spent the last week limping with every step because the cut is right on the ridge of my foot, where every single shoe known to man rests. A nice little reminder of Terence’s turn in day.

It eventually stopped bleeding and my mom, my friend Ginger (one of Terence’s best friends), Terence and I all hopped in the car to make the 45 minute drive down to the puppy-truck meeting spot.

We arrived early but not early enough to see all the pups handed out – apparently some raisers getting puppies arrived REALLY early, gee I wonder why! The rest of my group arrived and we posed for lots of pictures with Terence and Mathers beside the puppy truck and then we met Cancun!

And of course we had to line up in the same spot and take more pictures with the new little guy. I looped Terence’s leash around my left arm and held Cancun in front of me. As we were standing there, my left foot still throbbing, holding two black puppies in the hot sun, I felt a sharp pain in my left armpit and watched an evil little yellow jacket drop to the ground in front of me. The stupid thing stung me.

The day was trying to teach me a lesson in pain, emotional and physical.

Lucky for me one of our group’s raisers is a doctor and she quickly declared that I would live and suggested I take the Benadryl which another raiser had handed me in the excitement of the moment. I still have a nice mark from the sting, in case I should forget about the cut on my foot.

The rest of turn in was uneventful; Terence hopped right on the truck, fell in love with his kennel’s Nylabone wishbone, and just like that I became a part of his past.

Its been strange to be without him but all week, especially during the day to day stuff, like when I looked behind me at work before scooting my chair back only to be reminded that the ears which I so carefully avoided running over with my chair for the last year are now hundreds of miles away.

When I saw his name on this week’s phase report, my heart swelled. I’m just so proud of him!

Good luck, Terence, in whatever you decide to do.