Will We Do It Again?

Will we be raising another guide-dog puppy?

My husband and I discussed it all through our 10 months of puppy-walking Volt, and yes, we will do it again.
When we first started speaking about it, when Volt was still a little puppy, we decided we would take a few months off before walking another guide-dog puppy as it is a very intense and time consuming process.
And then- five months ago- we adopted our Riddick from SAGA.
That meant we had two Labrador puppies in our house, but Riddick benefited from it immensely as he learnt a lot from Volt on how to behave (dogs do well with good role models) and he had Volt to play and snuggle with. Volt didn't have the same as our two older dogs, Thelma and Louise, are very set in their ways and don't like having to deal with puppies! They're not mean or aggressive, but they don't play and they don't snuggle- not even with each other.
Our Volt has now gone back to SAGA for his formal training, and whilst most puppy-walkers take a new pup as soon as they are told their year-old dog will be going back to SAGA, we have Riddick so we still have a puppy in the house.
On the way back from dropping Volt off at kennels, we discussed getting a new puppy again. We have already told SAGA that we would like to take a new pup when our Riddick is a year old next April, but that also means it will be around the time Volt completes his training.
That led our train of thought along these lines:

• Volt will have a couple of training "holidays" and he can come "home" for them
• With Riddick already here, having Volt visit will make it a house full
• Having a new guide-dog pup, Riddick AND Volt visiting will be a lot to manage
• Should Volt not make the programme- touch wood- we will have "first dibs" on him coming back to us as a pet
• Should Volt come to us as a pet, having a new puppy will be tricky as our house isn't big enough for five dogs
• Waiting until our guide-dog puppy graduates will give us a good break between dogs

And of course not having a puppy doesn't mean we won't be involved with volunteering for SAGA events!
So yes. We will be getting a new puppy as soon as Volt graduates. And we will continue to follow that pattern in the future.

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Don't forget to check out the Twitter hash-tag #SAGApupVolt to see regular updates on my puppy raising adventure!

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