Scenes From the Dashboard Series – “Help Is A Four Legged Word”

Raise a Puppy Change A Life…

This was the scene outside the event facility on Team Graduation day for the North Central Region of Canine Companions for Independence.  The billboard van was parked out front and puppy raisers that did not want to drive to the kennels could drop off their pups after the event.

Now, our ‘pups’ aren’t really pups anymore, they have grown into full adult dogs by the time of ‘turn-in’.  Dara, below, is of this writing 19 months old and she had gone into her second ‘heat’ cycle just a few days before turn-in.

She did not get to participate in the days activities so we dropped her off earlier in the morning and proceeded to the events without her.  It was good to see familiar faces and meet new ones at both the puppy raiser luncheon and the graduation ceremony.

If you are new here, my husband and I are puppy raisers for Canine Companions for Independence.  We’ve taken a bit of a hiatus from raising the dogs as it is very time intensive and really is an emotional minefield sometimes.  But a year and a half ago we decided to raise our 3rd pup.  The organization had begun a ramping up phase to handle the demand and needed puppy raisers so we said okay to getting our third.

This graduation ceremony I speak of is the culmination of a very long process of matching the right dog to the right recipient, the pair learn to work together during a 2 week long intense training, and after passing their exams and access tests all parties come together and it’s on graduation day that the recipient meets the puppy raiser(s) and the dogs leash is ceremonially passed over to them, the dog officially goes from the puppy raiser to the recipient.

 

And so the cycle continues on and we are so very fortunate to have been part of Canine Companions for Independence.  It’s been one of the hardest things I’ve done but one of the most rewarding as well.  While Dara figures out what she wants to do with herself these next months we hope to get some projects done around the house and do some travel.  Come summer, I’m sure we’ll be ready to do it all over again…and again.

Good luck sweet Miss Dara!  Make us proud!

So much to do…

…and get done.

Have a great day today!

~Cathy