Puppy Stories

by Anne Gifford

When you go through life with a Guide Dog at your side the phrase "that dog" sounds very much like a racial slur. Every guide dog user or trainer has had the phrase used on them at one time or another. These dogs devote their lives to helping mankind. They are the gods of the doggy kingdom, radiating the power of their goodness. It really hurts those of us who know these creatures on a day to day basis.

As a volunteer trainer who gives thousands of hours a year to the work of raising a pup from 8 weeks to 18 months, it is adding insult to injury. The injury we knowingly volunteer for happens on that inevitable day when the pup is no longer a goofy little pain in the neck but a truly fine dog. We then have to turn him back in to the training school and wait to see if he makes it as a Guide Dog. It’s like sending your child off to college knowing he may never return home again. I’ve heard puppy raisers liken it to having your heart ripped out of your body while you’re still alive. So, to volunteer for that and then have someone say, " Hey, you can’t bring that dog in here!" is more than we deserve.

First of all a Guide Dog is not a pet. That big Golden Retriever or Labrador Retriever or German Shepherd or Doberman or Standard Poodle is literally the eyes for a blind person. Can you imagine someone saying to you, "I’m sorry, you can’t take your eyes in here?" The legislature has decreed that these dogs are so special that they are no longer considered pets but service dogs, and have the same rights as their human companions, to places of public access. The rule is that you either shut the place down to the public or admit the dog.

Now this doesn’t mean that you are going to see people in a food handling position with a dog in tow or that your local hospital has to admit them to the operating room. But all of the usual places that folks go in the course of their lives are open to the dogs by either state law or federal law. Some states don’t admit dogs in training but Nevada is one that does have a law for trainers.

Five years ago I was one of the first puppy raisers in Las Vegas. It was an intimidating experience. I used to break into a cold sweat every time I would go into a public place with my dog, but I just knew this was something I was meant to do. I began my vocation as a puppy raiser with Canine Companions For Independence, and am now working with Guide Dogs of the Desert. I raised a Golden Retriever named Maria. She was destined to become famous. Or should I say infamous? She was a darling ball of Golden Retriever fluff with the cutest little waggle butt you ever saw. I am an elementary music teacher at Vail Pittman School. I had been at this school for many years and was just sure that my administrator was going to be thrilled with my charity project and welcome Maria into the school with open arms. His reaction was, "I don’t want a dog in my school!"

I explained, (boy did I explain, I explained for a year!) that I would keep the pup in a crate in my room and if there were children who were allergic to her, we could put her in another crate in the PE office where there were no children until that class was over. But either I made the mistake of invoking the law to him, or he made the mistake of going to the school district’s lawyers. The upshot was that from the time we butted heads until my third dog that did go to school with me, it was pretty much out of our hands. The "case" took on a life of it’s own. It belonged to the media, lawyers and judges and eventually, the Supreme Court Justices for the state of Nevada. The media cast me as a fanatic dog lover who cared little for the safety or health of the children in my charge. Others cast my Principal as a dog-hating dictator who didn’t care about people with disabilities. Neither of these characterizations represents Tom O’Roark or me at all. The way the "Dog Wars" (as we now refer to them) ended was that Toto, a yellow Lab, went to school with me and it cost the Clark County School District $42,000 in lawyers fees.

Maria did not make it as a Canine Companion but was "career- changed" to a drug dog and is now with a police officer in Georgia. She had that high-energy personality that made her the perfect candidate. It was impossible to hide a ball from her. If neighbor kids knocked a tennis ball over our wall, she would get it. I would take it away from her and put it up somewhere I knew she couldn’t see it, later to find her riveted on the entertainment center barking at the ball! I once put a ball in the crook of a tree as I was working in the yard, only to discover she had the ball "treed" like a squirrel. She knew all the tricks that a service dog needs. She could push elevator buttons, open doors, fetch, roll over etc. Some things are just a matter of aptitude and not a matter of training.

My next dog, Telpa, named for the Telephone Pioneers of America was as different a dog as you will ever see. One night I saw a cricket bounce across the room toward her and land right between her front paws! I thought, well here is the chase instinct test for her. She looked at it, but did not move at all. Telpa was such a "soft" biddable pup. Another night my friend and co-puppy raiser, Angie Ison, saw that Telpa had the expensive leather leash in her mouth and hollered, "Telpa, knock it off!" Telpa promptly spit out the leash and literally covered her head with her paws. She was obviously mortified at being hollered at. Angie learned not to get too emphatic with Telpa or it would scare her.

There is a theory among trainers that the pup literally chooses at some point to do the work or to resist and flunk out of the program. Telpa was not a flunker. She graduated and now lives in Ventura County, California with a lady who is in a wheel chair. They have a pool, and I’ve often wondered if she learned to swim. You thought all Labs could swim? Wrong! She looked like she was trying to climb an imaginary tree in the water, a doggy thrashing machine. She would not even get her feet wet in the sprinklers!

My next dog was a yellow Lab named Toto. Toto was the first pup to go to school with me. He became so shock proof that he would sleep like a dead dog while 32 first graders played percussion instruments on either side of him. The children would stop, put the shaker or drum down and jump over him. They would grab a new instrument and continue the game. That big pile of yellow dog just lay there. He trusted that they wouldn’t hurt him. He was really an asset to my program because if kids got too silly he would roll over and groan and I would say, "I know Toto, they’re acting really bad today aren’t they?" Toto’s groans became something that made us all laugh.

We had a graduation ceremony for Toto and we still miss him at our school. He lives in Coon Rapids, Minn. with Michael McNaughten who is a Grandpa with lots of grandchildren. He is very happy and we hear from him by email.

Miami, another yellow Lab, was Toto’s replacement. They don’t really replace each other any more than one child can replace another. But when she went back for final training she made the mistake of growling at a technician who was taking her temperature. She was rejected from the program for aggression and came back to me. I took her to my son and she is his baby now.

Now we have Tara. She is a cross between a Golden mother and a Lab father. There are three littermates here in town and they all look and act differently. Tara is Golden and has longer soft fur. Toby is red and all-boy. Topaz is whiter and looks more like a Lab. They are five months old at this writing. Tara sleeps in a crate at night. My husbands wakeup call is at 5:30 AM when it’s time to feed the dogs. We have a 13-year-old Cocker-mix named Abby who is the mother superior to all the pups. Puppy gets fed outside in the dog run because pups have a tendency to do the "in one end and out the other" thing. Abby gets to eat in peace in the garage. Then they go back to bed until I get up at 6:00 and they go out again. Puppy goes on to a tie down to wait until it’s time to walk to school. We walk two miles to school, past Garside Middle School where a lot of my former students attend, so there are hello’s all the way and lots of heavy traffic to get used to. Tara can’t stop and get petted unless the kids ask and she sits. When we arrive at school we have to see Jean Lawrence, our school secretary, and get a Nylabone out of her desk. After greetings all around and a little chew time we go to the music room. Tara has a drink and goes into her corner on a tie down.

I teach until 11:30 and then take her out for a quick "get busy" at her potty place and she’s back on the tie down until after I ride herd on 300 kids in the cafeteria. She doesn’t go to the lunchroom, as she can never think food will come from a human hand and I don’t trust the kiddos to not feed her. After all, they’re puppies too. There are signs all over our school that say you must make sure that the human on the other end of the leash is looking at you before you pet. The kids know that little puppies are like baby brothers and sisters who will bite if they aren’t taught. So I have to be watching for that little mouth to open and I give a little snap of the leash and puppy thinks that opening her mouth around human flesh makes her neck uncomfortable.

After school we make the trek back home. In the evening there is usually a trip shopping or out to dinner. She goes to church and to business meetings. She gets obedience training all day long whenever she needs it because I’m training her to live in the house with a blind person. This is something you can’t teach a dog who is raised in a kennel or the backyard. Puppy can’t get on the furniture, race through the house, get in the garbage, sleep on the bed, take food from anyone’s hand, plate or the floor. She has to be darned near perfect and that takes a lot of work. In exchange for all this work we humans get to live with a constant comedienne. But we enjoy the rewards of seeing our efforts create a loving, devoted canine companion for someone in need.

Richard Segerblom, my lawyer friend who took on the dog war case put it this way, "All the fun stuff happens in the first 18 months of the pup’s life. After that the dog lays down and is really pretty boring." I think he should raise a Guide Dog puppy don’t you? He has the right attitude. If you think this form of rewarding insanity might suit your family give us a call at 870-4837 or 731-3555. Guide Dogs of the Desert is looking for a few good homes.