Happy Birthday, Brudders!!

Happy fourth birthday to Liam and brudder Lomax!!

Where it all stands

Tai is in formal training as of 8-9-08
Paige is still a loving pet and the sweetest dog ever!

Liam has been Re-matched with his new partner.

Voight has been re-matched with his new partner.

Calendar Time

I love October. My wife and I started dating in October, got married in October, our favorite holiday is in October, plus hockey starts in October, what more do you want??

Sorry, back to the dog thing. So, it brought me great joy to flip over the calendar to October and see Liam, Voight in harness, and our friends' (and area leaders' puppy), Mika as the picture for the month (my wife keeps telling me to write about Mika and her special place in my heart, but that will have to wait until a later time). Enjoy this picture from the 2007 GDA South Bay calendar, featuring three of the prettiest black dogs we know.

For the rest of the story, well, we will let Jenny take care of that.

Happy Birthday, Brudders!!

Happy birthday to Liam and his brother Lomax (as well as the rest of the L's, wherever they may be)! It's hard to believe that it's been slightly less than three years since we brought him home, and only slightly less believable that he has been a guide since early February.

We sent an email to his partner, and will be sending a gift as well - Liam loved Nyla-rings, as you can see!! (credit to Jenny for taking, and naming, this picture: "One Ring To Rule Them All..."


We're sending out many hugs, ear-rubs, and kisses to the L's! Happy Birthday!

Second Dog, Second Guide

We still haven't sufficiently recovered from the weekend. Graduation is, above all things, emotionally draining. It is wonderful and inspirational, but this second time around, we discovered the same thing as the first time: it takes a lot out of you.

There will be much more posted, including pictures, but we wanted to update you on Liam. We went to GDA (having first had breakfast with Jenny, Lomax's puppyraiser) and then met with Louise, the head of the puppy department. Here's the drill: you sit in the room, waiting, and she asks who for the puppyraisers is speaking (this time it was Amy), and then she tells you what you can and cannot say. I hate to say it, but it is straight out of the Charlie Brown cartoons - "blah blah blah blah". You want to see your dog. Except, it's not your dog anymore. The puppy you raised has bonded to a person who will depend on them for so much. And that's exactly what they are bred for, why we all do this.

But you still want to see them.

We met a very nice lady, who is Liam's partner. She's in love. She absolutely loves our "small black bear" (who was looking small after our robust girl Paige). She raved about his obedience, but also his loving, healing nature. Also a great plus: before she was given Liam, she had hit it off with another graduate - who happened to get Lomax. It figures that the "brudders" would have graduates who were friends.

It was great to see everyone there and feel so supported - not only were my parents and Matthew's mom there, but our first pup we raised Voight, with his partner. She said that she wanted to see Voight's "little brother" graduate.

How cool is that?

We've since had an update from Liam, from his partner's daughter. She said that Liam must be doing well, because every day, when her mom gets home with Liam, her mom says, "good boy Liam, good job".

It's such a humbling experience to raise these dogs, and to know their people. Truly Voight's and Liam's partners have no reason to know us... except that we raised their dogs, and that bond - that we all love Liam and Voight - is strong enough to make a friendship, a relationship, or even a passing acquaintance. Now that graduation is done, we miss Liam a lot, but we know he's doing what he was born and raised for, and we couldn't be more proud.

There's the strangest excitement today

There's the strangest excitement today

if you're awake then you're welcome to hear.

I got a gift and it blew me away

from the far eastern sea straight to here

Oh God I feel like I'm in for it now,

it's like the rush has gone straight to my brain.

But my voice is as lonely as loud,

as I whisper the joy of this pain.

And suddenly,

you've done it all.

You've won me over,

in no time at all.

from The Gift, by Angels and Airwaves

We get to see Liam for the first time tomorrow in six months - and for the first time as a guide and with his new partner.

Wouldn't have it any other way.

In The Beginning....

There was a middle. Well, we must say that it's not easy to start a blog smack-dab in the middle of everything. Let us digress, make a few introductions, and then we will continue.

We are amy and matt, volunteer puppy raisers for Guide Dogs of America. We became involved nearly five years ago when we were looking for dog of our own (since we were already owned by two cats). We visited the Orange County Pet Expo, a truly mind boggling place for all things animal. We patted and petted, were slurped by every permutation of dog possible, and then we stumbled upon the row where all the service organizations were housed. We ended up talking to a very nice couple ( now friends of ours) representing GDA who told us all about the organization, and invited us to the annual Open House. That turned out to be the kicker: amy would be graduating with her Master's degree that day - we couldn't go. We didn't get a dog that day, but we did hang on to the GDA application.

We talked about it, pondered, gnashed our teeth, and finally sent in our application about eight months later. We interviewed... and began the wait for our first puppy. In the interim, we watched other puppies for their raisers "puppy sitting": adorable Cayla, sweet Courage, the thieving Tanner, mama's boy Westin, beautiful Landon, michievious Gus, the perfect (and now very silly) Jetta... there were ten in all. Before THE CALL came.

Louise, the puppy dept. head at GDA, called. "Male or female?"
Did she have to ask? We would have taken three legged at that point. Ironically, I was already on the phone with Matthew. I clicked over.

"Okay, dear, male or female?" He chose male. A black male, letter V would be coming home July 28, 2003.



Yes, there began our first dog Voight. I'm sure we will tell you more about Voight as time goes on, but we learned and laughed and cried with him. He was tall and lanky, a big beautiful boy. We called him Voighters, the Voight Monstrosity. We turned him in November 6, 2004. He graduated with his wonderful partner in July 31, 2005.

The part we skipped in all of this was Liam. Liam was our second puppy raised, coming home six days after we turned Voight in. We thought it was best to get another puppy while Voight was in for training. When we turned Voight in, all we could think was "We're doing this again? To have our hearts ripped out again?"

Yep. Liam was...amazing. A smart, gorgeous boy. Our "small black bear". He loved to play, loved to work, loved his "grandpa" and the boat. Oh yeah, did Liam ever love the water... and the snow. Liam had no fear and lived with such joy in his heart. We will be posting more and more about Liam, particularly since he is also brother to Lomax, whose raiser Jenny has become one of our best friends.
So here we are. The middle. We got the call again: Liam is graduating with his partner Heidi in a week. We are honored and grateful, and so excited to report to all of this that not only is Liam graduating, but will be joined by his brother and best friend, Lomax, who has also been matched.

There are also two more in this story, our Paige and soon to be Tai. You will see much more of them, but this post is starting to take on record breaking proportions.

This is not about the end. There are beginnings to come. Welcome to the middle.