[nagdu] puppy!

[Ben Humphreys]

Julie,

Very interesting to hear details and reasons for 
self training.  I have several questions:

Can you mention your trainer's name and 
location?  Have they worked for a guide dog school in the past?

When you did all your own training, did you find 
your dog took intuitively to guide work, i.e. 
obstacle avoidance and even "traffic checks" 
being talked about recently on this list?

Can you comment on the costs of 
self-training?  When done by a guide dog school, 
the cost seems to be about $40k, but it must 
surely be lower if done for one's self, right?

Thanks -- this is really neat that the schools aren't the end-all of training.

Ben

At 06:05 PM 7/8/2013, you wrote:
>heya all! I finally found a puppy!  I’ve been 
>looking off and on since last fall.  I thought I 
>had a breeder and a puppy this spring, but there 
>ended up being no litter.  I’ve been looking 
>when I’ve had a few spare moments this spring 
>and summer.  After many disappointments I’ve 
>finally found a puppy! The breeder is only about 
>an hour away from here.  She has only one litter 
>per year.  the dogs are family raised in her 
>home.  she does health testing, doesn’t insist 
>on cropped ears and didn’t freak out about the 
>guide dog thing.  She had a lot of good 
>questions for me.  I’m feeling really good 
>about this breeder and the puppy.  The litter 
>was born on June 8, so they are very little 
>yet.  I will go in a couple of weeks to pick my 
>puppy from the litter.  then in another month I 
>get to bring the puppy home!  When I explained 
>what sort of dog I was looking for, she felt 
>that  it was highly probable that there would be 
>a puppy in the litter that would fit my 
>needs.   So barring any unforeseen craziness, I 
>will have a Doberman puppy in a few weeks! I’m 
>only keeping the puppy for a very short time, 
>then he’s off to the trainers for the next 
>long while.  I will miss the little guy, but I 
>will not miss puddles on the floor, chewed 
>shoes, getting up at crazy hours for emergency 
>potty breaks and the constant supervision a 
>puppy needs. The trainer is doing all the puppy 
>raising and a good portion of the guide 
>training.  I’m so incredibly relieved that 
>this has finally worked out or at least the end 
>of the beginning is incredibly close.  I just 
>don’t have the time or energy to owner 
>train  again, but I’m not 100% satisfied with 
>any of the program options available.   I’ll 
>have my Doberman, positive training methods, 
>high quality food, no kennel environment and the 
>dog’s skills customized to my needs and of 
>course I own the dog.  I have no words to 
>express how grateful I feel that things have 
>finally come together to make this happen. Next 
>step, buy puppy necessities and pick out 
>possible names.  Ideas? Julie 
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