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[onetrickponies]

Happy Thanksgiving! Or just happy Thursday, if you don't do the whole Thanksgiving thing.

I'm all puppy'd out. Nine-month old puppy + three-month old puppy =/= relaxing break. I'm starting to think that booking a flight back for tomorrow was in the best interest of my sanity, but time feels so short having done that.

Day 22: 36,735 words, 73.5%

Comments

[onetrickponies]

Yup, she's now our pet. The way things work is the puppies go to raisers when they're about two months old for basic training (sit, stay, etc) and socialization (going out into public, like stores and restaurants) and then after a year to a year and a half they go back to the foundation for their formal training, which is broken into ten stages, and once they get through all ten stages they get partnered with someone who's blind or visially impaired. Our nine-month old went back to the foundation because of health problems shortly after she was placed with a puppy raiser and it turned out she had a liver shunt, so she was career changed then and there. Normally career changes happen during formal training, either for health or behavioral issues, but our pup pretty much missed the whole guide dog training process in order to treat her liver shunt.

So we ended up adopting her, especially when we found out that she's related to the first dog we trained as a guide (she's a niece; our first dog's littermate was selected as a breeder and had a litter). The foundation was having a hard time finding her a home because of her age and lack of any training, as well as her liver issue. Which has been completely resolved and she's growing like a weed. :)

[fyrethief]

Oh, bless her! That's so lovely! :) So what have you called her? And is she the black or golden one? :)

*again, wants squeeful icon*

[onetrickponies]

She's black and she's called Monica. :) The foundation names all of the puppies at birth, and each litter's puppies' names start with the same letter. It's kind of an ironic coincidence that all of our dogs have come from either M or D litters, though only the two M dogs are related.

[fyrethief]

Haha, funny!

Our black lab's name starts with 'M' too -- Mischa! :D