I was delighted to see the story of our guide dog, Tara, and her trainer, our daughter, Sara. Just wanted to let you know that Tara went on to "college" to became a guide dog for a young lady from Watertown who had lost her site as a teenager. A lot of tears were shed when we went to her graduation: tears of sadness that she was no longer ours and tears of happiness and pride that she was accomplishing what she was trained for. We tried contacting her through Guiding Eyes but she never responded, so we don't know what happened after she got Tara.
During the last three months that Tara lived with us, our youngest daughter, Kimberly, also raised another guide dog named Foster. For a while we had three dogs in the house (our own and the two guide dogs). Alas, Foster did not cut the mustard in "guide dog college". He was afraid of anything new which is definitely a no-no for guide dogs. He was offered to us as a permanent pet and we jumped at the chance to have this delightful hooligan come live with us. Poor Foster was not only afraid of new things, he couldn't swim and was afraid of the water too. Now, I know this is hard to believe because, after all, he was a black Lab too. But he really panicked whenever he was over his head. He simply couldn't swim without nearly drowning himself. This resulted in a lot of rescues from Kimberly. Until he passed away (13 years later) he gave us nothing but love, love, love and lots of laughs.
August 20, 2008
Posted on April 30 at 6:22 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I was delighted to see the story of our guide dog, Tara, and her trainer, our daughter, Sara. Just wanted to let you know that Tara went on to "college" to became a guide dog for a young lady from Watertown who had lost her site as a teenager. A lot of tears were shed when we went to her graduation: tears of sadness that she was no longer ours and tears of happiness and pride that she was accomplishing what she was trained for. We tried contacting her through Guiding Eyes but she never responded, so we don't know what happened after she got Tara.
During the last three months that Tara lived with us, our youngest daughter, Kimberly, also raised another guide dog named Foster. For a while we had three dogs in the house (our own and the two guide dogs). Alas, Foster did not cut the mustard in "guide dog college". He was afraid of anything new which is definitely a no-no for guide dogs. He was offered to us as a permanent pet and we jumped at the chance to have this delightful hooligan come live with us. Poor Foster was not only afraid of new things, he couldn't swim and was afraid of the water too. Now, I know this is hard to believe because, after all, he was a black Lab too. But he really panicked whenever he was over his head. He simply couldn't swim without nearly drowning himself. This resulted in a lot of rescues from Kimberly. Until he passed away (13 years later) he gave us nothing but love, love, love and lots of laughs.
On Capital Region Scrapbook: Glenville family, dog received training in seeing-eye program