Beware — Puppy cuteness …

My daughter keeps telling me that she wants a puppy.  However, I take this with a grain of salt since she also wants rats, kittens (as opposed to our three cats), mice (especially wants to save any that the aforementioned cats are currently playing with), and any other mammals she can think of at any given moment.

I figure we have the best scenario possible.  We are a foster family for service dogs in training.  On weekends, snow storms and holidays when we can take a dog … we pick up a dog, crate and food.  On weekends we can’t we send an email and say so sorry we have school, work and/or family commitments.  Yes we have a certain code of behavior for the dogs in our care because they will be service dogs and they cannot jump on people, cats or furniture and a list of other expectations.  But it is rewarding because the dogs are moving towards graduation when they will help someone who needs assistance.  Also because of our rather hectic schedule, it allows us to be sort of like grandparents, able to see and play with the dog but not be a full-time care-giver (though I know many grand-parents who are full-time caregivers so that analogy doesn’t quite work!)

People say to me when I mention what my family does, “oh but I couldn’t give back the puppy, I would want to keep it”.  Well maybe if I didn’t work 45 hours a week and if I had time to sip tea and eat bonbons I would also have time to take out dogs constantly and train the dog for hours a day and everything else that it means to be a responsible dog owner.  But I am perfectly accepting with the idea of helping with the raising of a dog and then allowing it to move on.

One of the most meaningful experiences I have had in a while was when we went to a graduation for this organization.  We saw the ultimate placement of some of these dogs with their people.  It was great to see how the people, after two short weeks of being placed and trained to take their dogs in public, how much they have already helped.  I can truly say there wasn’t a dry eye in the place.

I am rarely tempted by the thought of being a long term dog owner.  Not until I no longer work more than full-time and have time to play with a canine.  But when one cuddles with such sweetness … one does wonder about decisions made.  Maybe just one?  They are SO small… yet I have seen them in all stages between fit in your arms and almost two years of age.  These dogs have a purpose and it is an amazing purpose.

To learn more about these dogs and a great organization.  Please follow this link to Educated Canines Assisting with Disabilities

Thank you and have a great day!

Veterans’ Day Parade in Hartford

This morning the kids and I ate a hearty breakfast of scrambled eggs and ham and got in the car for a new adventure. We were going to join Educated Canines Assisting with Disabilities (ECAD) in the Veterans’ Day Parade in Hartford.

For more than a year now the children and I have been a home for the weekend family and the children have loved their summer camp. I have started to take public handler classes so that I can get to do more activities with ECAD and their dogs. However going on parade was a brand new task. So I re-arranged my work schedule and layered my clothes and we were off.

We met at the Breeding Center in Winsted and followed the van with about a dozen volunteer walkers and 5 dogs ranging in age from six months to about five years. The young in training to be service dogs placed with wounded veterans in operation Project Heal, the oldest a trained therapy dog.

We arrived early in Hartford and parked a fair distance from the meeting area. Every where we walked we received oohs and ahhs because most people have a favorable reaction to gorgeous Labs and Retrievers.

We waited next to a fife and drum band and in front of some very classy Corvettes. It seemed like forever for the parade to start but we were in the first section and that was very good for the parade started at 12:30 and our section finished by 1:30PM.

All went well — carrying banners and the dogs looking cute for the parade goers.

Until the intersection when we were asked to wait and a group of people with muskets cut in front of us. They fired into the air a few times throughout the parade (though it felt like MANY times) and each time the dogs were tested to maintain control. The very young were really wondering what was happening: crowds, cars gunning engines and muskets firing.

Overall it was a great day. I am glad that we were able to be a part of it.

Next year — ECAD will ask to be away from the muskets though.

ECAD — Educated Canines Assisting with Disabilities

The book that I have recommended the most recently or that I have encouraged people to listen to on audio is “Until Tuesday: A Wounded Warrior and the Golden Retriever Who Saved Him” by Luis Carlos Montalvan.  I do appreciate memoirs of people who have done good things and helped others in some way and this book certainly fits the bill.  I also appreciate stories of animals that have helped people so this book is definitely a winner.  Also — judging books by covers, which I KNOW we shouldn’t do … how can we say no to this handsome cover?

I finished reading this book and really wanted to learn more about service dogs.  I wanted to have a program at the library to raise awareness about the role of service dogs and how they are more than “just” seeing eye dogs.

It was serendipity, because the only ECAD facility mentioned in the book was in New York, but shortly after I read the book the breeding center was in the local paper and I learned more about families could get involved.  I have become a foster family and my children went to summer camp there and loved it.  I feel this is a win win scenario for  my children are learning about these wonderful opportunity for service and they are also learning dog training and husbandry skills that will serve a life-time of pet care.

So this sort of falls into the previous post — what is important?  Giving back to the community.  Life is short — do what you can to help others and when I take a dog into my home for a weekend to be one small part of his or her complete two and a half years of training.  I have helped just a little and that sweet loving animal has helped me too.

The Fourth of July 2013

The Fourth of July 2013

There have been many military memoirs written lately – stories of horrors remembered and hard-won glories. The sadness, tears and soil – both mental and physical that haunt generations of soldiers; the amazing thing is not that soldiers survive physically but that they survive emotionally or spiritually.  This is the true testament to human resilience.  For a woman who enjoys the escapism reading of fantasy, traditional mystery or romance – I also have read a fairly large amount of military non-fiction: “Unbroken”, “The Heart and the Fist”, “No Buddy Left Behind” and “Until Tuesday”.

The two books that have truly spoken to my heart over the past few years are “The Heart and the Fist” by Eric Greitens and “Until Tuesday” by Luis Carlos Montalvan.  One because of the hope that he saw in the world and his desire to make that hope possible and the other because he was strong enough to ask for help and with that help he overcame great obstacles.  Both of these men have accepted huge responsibility to become spokesmen for causes to help fellow veterans and I applaud them for their efforts.  Both of these are exceptionally well-written and very moving – also to those who listen to books, they are very well read by the authors.  So well read in fact that I listened to them with my children for I felt it necessary for my kids to hear these stories.  Excepting one anecdote related by a soldier in SEAL training camp about a cow on a highway in Florida which had some very soldierly vocabulary, my children enjoyed them both … they also probably enjoyed watching their mother blush explaining certain word choices too – so it was all good.

For me a book can be one of two things – escapism from the stress of reality or a catalyst to change the reality in which one finds oneself.  Both of the above mentioned books have changed my life for the better and for that I am thankful.

May you be blessed on this Independence Day – may your burdens be light enough to manage  and your friendships warm and supportive to make the burdens melt away!