PUPPY RAISER STORIES WITH OUR MEMBERS

Raising a Guide Dog Puppy

How did I ever become involved with Guide Dog Foundation and raising a future guide dog puppy?

Many years back I decided I wanted to add a second dog to our household. I spent much time and thought into what breed dog would come into our family. On a Sunday while reading the newspaper I came across an advertisement from Guide Dog Foundation to raise a puppy for a year and prepare them to become a guide or service dog. What could be any better. This is exactly what I wanted to do. I contacted the Foundation the following morning and the Area Coordinator for NH in turn contacted me. We met and he also met my pet dog. I was so excited and full of questions. I started reading the “puppy manual” from GDF immediately, anxiously awaiting a phone call when my new puppy would arrive.

The day that first future guide dog puppy arrived has changed and enriched my life forever.
The rewards are great. It also can be a little heartbreaking when it is their time to return to The Guide Dog Foundation to begin their formal guide training. A good way to look at this is the pup is furthering their education.

This pup comes into my home and my life when it is 8-12 weeks old. Now my work begins. First comes house training along with learning to potty on command and crate training, followed with basic obedience, good and polite manners for real world situations. Every pup is different to raise. Some are much more challenging than others. Some want to please quicker than others. My commitment and common goal is to give every pup the best chance at becoming a guide or service dog.

As time moves along the pup will be exposed to all environments reinforcing what they have learned and adding in new teachings. We go to restaurants, shopping, travel, banks, post office, hotels, a bus or train ride. They learn to navigate going up and down stairs slowly on any type of stairs (open back, closed back, concrete, wood, grated, etc). They learn to stop and wait at doors, even the automatic opening doors along with the “switch” command for a left handed opening door. This is a small example of the pups learning's.

Some traditional commands will have a different meaning for guide puppies. For a new puppy raising family this may take a little getting used to.

“Celebration Sunday” is when a puppy raiser is invited to GDF to meet and celebrate with the new working dog guide team. This day is one of the proudest days you can ever experience.

These pups are amazing and I could not ever ask for anything more than the privilege and honor to raise a future guide or service dog.

Becky, Puppy Raiser in New Hampshire 2009

Sharon Hefferman and Pat Graham co-raised "RYKER", now a 16 month old beautiful, intelligent and gentle German Shepherd, who loves to play with a tennis ball. Ryker recently passed is his IFT (In For Training) test for the Guiding Eyes for the Blind at Yorktown Heights, NY. Ryker will go into harness training on March 20th.

Sharon Hefferman and Pat Graham co-raised "RYKER", now a 16 month old beautiful, intelligent and gentle German Shepherd, who loves to play with a tennis ball. Ryker recently passed is his IFT (In For Training) test for the Guiding Eyes for the Blind at Yorktown Heights, NY. Ryker will go into harness training on March 20th.

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Sharon Heffernan is a puppy raiser with Guiding Eyes for the blind. The first puppy that she raised was a black Labrador by the name of “Granite.” Granite is a working guide now and resides in Winnipeg, Canada with his owner, Tina. Here are two photos of “Granite”, one as a puppy and one as proudly working.

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