[nagdu] A New Chapter Begins to Start

[Tami Jarvis]

Buddy,

Welcome to the journey! It's a lot of fun. Keep telling yourself that... 
/lol/ For all the effort and planning with the uncertain outcome, it is 
a great experience all around and very rewarding.

I'm going to be picking up my next prospect on the 9th or 10th, so I'll 
be finding out if I learned anything useful the first time. I'll be 
taking the same approach as you -- no rush, no plan to put the new dog 
to work until he's at least 2. Mitzi is 8 and still going strong, but in 
a couple of years I'm thinking she'll be ready to stay home and relax. 
She'll be helping with the training, of course. /smile/

I'm looking forward to hearing about your new adventure!

Tami

On 07/01/2014 03:17 PM, Buddy Brannan via nagdu wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Well, been talking about it for years, and now I’ve decided I’m jumping in.
>
> I’ve decided that I’m going to train my next guide dog.
>
> First, I want to make one thing very clear. I have nothing but the utmost respect for guide dog schools. This isn’t some anti-authoritarian down with the establishment thing. In fact, I may never do this thing again after the one time. Or maybe I will. No one knows, not even me. This is just a thing I’m doing because I want the experience of raising and training my next guide dog, simple as that. I’m under no delusions here; I don’t, for instance, think that I’ll do as thorough a job with traffic training as the Seeing Eye does, but, and meaning to cast no aspersions, I don’t think *anyone* does as thorough a job of traffic training as Seeing Eye does. I do, however, believe that I will do a safe and adequate job of it, otherwise, I won’t pass my dog out of training.
>
> In this case, and for my purposes, this is more about the journey than it is about the destination, important as that destination is. Whether I take two years or three, or even whether I (and my dog) am/are successful, I will have the experience, and I expect to learn something valuable from it.
>
> I’m in no rush. Leno and I are coming up on our fourth anniversary at the end of August. That means, if he holds to pattern, I’ve got at least two more years of working with him, and he’s showing no signs of slowing down. Even if I started with a puppy today, I don’t anticipate being done any time before dog’s second birthday, and probably later, and really, I’m *not* starting with a puppy today.
>
> I’ll be visiting with a breeder on Saturday. I’ll be surprised if I have a new puppy in much less than a year from now. This is a thing I’m nervous about, excited about, and looking forward to. Also perhaps dreading slightly, if for no other reason than puppy parking in the middle of the night. Still, it’s exciting stuff, albeit a really, really large undertaking that has an uncertain outcome.
>
> So that’s my bit of fun. I fully expect to be bending the ears of the owner trainers here, because, well, I’m going in on new territory. Fortunately, Leno will be around to help me through it.
>
> —Buddy
>
>
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