Friday, April 29, 2011

Waiting In Anticipation!

I have applied for my family and I to be puppy raisers and I can't wait to find out when the representative from the South African Guide-dogs Association will come and see us!
Being a puppy raiser entails raising and training a puppy from 8 weeks old to between 11 and 18 months old, and then returning the pup to the Guide-dogs Association for the completion of their training, and then assignment to a blind person.
It’s a lot of work with formal training from the SAGA and strict standards to adhere to, as well as regular visits to the puppy’s temporary home to see how it’s going. The pup will have to go everywhere with me to get used to all sorts of people and places. And of course it means having a highly intelligent puppy to deal with as well, which comes with its own set of rather entertaining complications! I believe it’s a very worthy cause, and it’s something I have wanted to do for many years but couldn’t undertake because I worked full day.


I do hope we will be approved and I look forward to blogging about our puppy raising adventure.

3 comments:

Julia said...

Sjoe lady. You are VERY brave to do this. Having said that, I just know that you will be able to pull this one off and I wish you all the best in your puppy-raising adventures.
x

cat said...

Oh I hope you do! As you know we are lab fans and they are truly the most intelligent little critters (naughty too when babies). Do you know that you can also apply to adopt a retired dog?

Darla said...

Aw! That would be sweet and super fulfilling!