Pearl's "life report." Or "yay! Puppyraising!"

[knittingknerd]

So as some of you may know for the last year and a half I've been a puppyraiser to Pearl, a golden-lab, to be a seeing eye dog. Puppyraising is like... socializing, basic training, loving your puppy, etc. Basically you can't give a blind person an 8 week old puppy and call it a seeing eye dog,so someone has to have the puppy until it is old enough to go into formal training. Pearl goes back Sunday (less than 48 hours?!) for formal training, leaving me. Kinda' sad. Kinda' excited. I thought I'd showcase her life here, do like a trip report but her life. And if anything it's a way to see cute puppy pictures. Enjoy!


A puddle of puppies! The red collared pup is Pearl.

Super Girl or Awesome guide dog pup? Or Super Guide Pup? Pearl's 1st camping trip.

Sea World

Pearl and Pearl Harbor vets (and me).

Favorite Pearl picture. Her 6 month birthday!

Chaos!

Pearl's favorite thing.


Go Dodgers!
And finally

Hopefully this will inspire y'all to raise a guide! Hopefully this is okay...

Adding stuff (seriously I was about to fall asleep last night writing that.) :

If you've been thinking about doing this or just now thought this looks like fun, but rationalizing your way through it... STOP!
-Yes it sucks to give the pup away and you cry, but a.)not your dog. b.)you get another puppy if you sign up to get one... so you can't cry when you have an 8 week old puppy... c.) the dog does something AMAZING!
-If you're busy and don't think you'd have time-everyone is busy.You just make it a family effort. Bring the pup to work, take the pup with you, etc.
-Guide dogs in training (pending the state and weirdness) are essentially allowed everywhere humans go. So it makes it "easy" to just take your dog everywhere. And your friends get really used to it, actually like it. I'm coming down for my friend's wedding in June and we had lunch last weekend (pre-move). I knew I was going to bring Gabe down to California with me(the white pup, we raise 2... oy!), thought he'd stay in the hotel during the wedding. At lunch my friend was like "I got Gabe a tux. He's getting an invitation..." The dog is getting better treatment than me! My friends expect a dog with me and they spoil my dogs! So don't worry about that stuff.
-The support, friends, and great people I met because of this... You meet sooooo many great people and they're good honest nice people which I find rare lately. If you have an issue with your dog someone will help. It humbles you.
-If I can do it anyone can! Seriously... I was a wreck when I got Pearl and honestly thought I could never do this, what did I sign up for?, you name the thoughts... But now after raising one I don't plan on getting my own personal dogs ever. Dude I like this waaaaaay too much to stop.

Basically the point of that last ramble is: it's not as hard as you think/rationalize it and what you gain from doing something like it you can't describe it.

[Melonballer]

Aww very cute knittingknerd. COngratulations and thanks for raising a seeing eye dog.

[Joshrzmeup]

Awwwwwww . Pearl will be an excellent guide dog, she has been well raised and well loved.
I loooooove the picture of her and Pluto - too adorable!!!!!!!

[Roo719]

The importance of what you've contributed cannot be understated--I work at a Deaf and Blind school where dogs like Pearl help people become their best. Thank you for doing it.

Now comes the hard part--we can we do to support you as you have supported the visually impaired community?

Peace,
Roo

[PrincessY]

Thanks for the good sob this early in the morning!

You did (and I know will continue) to do an amazing, selfless thing. But having to give away a dog.... SO hard!

I applaud you!

[aimster]

I loooove the one with Pluto! She's like "Big doggie! I love you big doggie!"

So are you going to get another puppy?

Sometimes I wish puppies could stay puppies and kittens could stay kittens. They're the absolute cutest when they're tiny... and usually the funniest.

[knittingknerd]

Originally Posted by aimster

I loooove the one with Pluto! She's like "Big doggie! I love you big doggie!"

So are you going to get another puppy?

Sometimes I wish puppies could stay puppies and kittens could stay kittens. They're the absolute cutest when they're tiny... and usually the funniest.

People while that was happening were sooo funny! They were like "hopefully she's fixed!" If you look closely you can see her stitches from that in that picture. But that's her personality. She'll come up and love on you even if she doesn't know you. That's the great thing about the lab-golden mix.

We aren't getting another that I know of. Long story short we were going to get another one around this time, but in April through a very funny story (never ask me if I want a puppy) we got Gabe (the white puppy in the last picture) from the school. And I'm one of those people that believe things happen for a reason and timing and such. And we wouldn't have gotten Gabe (who is unlike any lab I've ever had! Mellow yellow essentially.) if we waited until now... So I don't think so, but I didn't think we were getting a puppy in April.

The puppy thing is why I do guide dogs. Y'all think I'm a nice person, which okay maybe, I just like puppies! I can't do another old dog, especially labs. I'm totally happy taking dogs out at 2am in the snow, cleaning up accidents in Target, dealing with all the puppy issues. I can't do old dog issues.

[aimster]

Yeah I agree labs are awesome dogs. When I lived up north, a neighbor had a black lab that was the sweetest thing. His name was Midnight... I named Wonderpup after him (his full name is Midnight the Wonderpup). I loved that dang dog like he was my own.

When I was in high school, my best friend had a yellow lab. She was the funniest thing. We taught her how to say "mama" and "I love you".

[Stitchy]

aw, precious life story. Pearl is beautiful, and I will miss seeing pictures of her adventures here on MiceChat.

[penguinsoda]

Aww.... what a wondeful story. But I have to admit... I'm tearing up a bit here thinking how hard it but be to let them go even when you know that they are moving on to do the job they were raised and trained to do. But the time and effort you have put in training and socializing this dog... there is no way to fully let you know how much its appreciated.

And maybe someday.... you'll raise and train another one. Never say never...

[twobluestripes]

thanks for this report! this sounds like something i'd be interested in doing one day.

[knittingknerd]

Originally Posted by penguinsoda

And maybe someday.... you'll raise and train another one. Never say never...

I'm raising my second one right now... What happened in Gabe's case is:
You're supposed to get dog A, train Dog A until he/she is 18 months-ish, then give them back same day (or maybe a week before...) get Dog B. You train Dog B until 18 months-ish, return Dog B, and get Dog C. So you never have 2 pups at the same time really (unless you want to). With us we got Dog A, when Dog A was 11 months, somehow Dog B showed up and we've had both dogs for 7 months....

[Disneykat]

She's beautiful. I would so do that if I didn't have this habit of getting too attached to animals.

[SCUBAbe]

awe, she is so cute. I would love to raise a guide dog, but my life is just to hectic and not only would I get attached, but my other two dogs would as well....I don't think they would understand why their playmate is all of a sudden missing when it's time to give the dog back.

[Legally Brunette]

Thanks for the pictures and sharing your experience KK. I would love to do it someday. I have a toddler now that would just get too attached and I don't know how I would explain to him that I just gave away someone that was like family to us. Maybe when he's older and would understand, I'll give it a go.