Alex, Mercury and Keith
Mercury looking at Keith
Mercury as a puppy!
Hi everyone! I have to brag just a little bit....I am so proud of my daughter, Alex, for raising a Guide Dog puppy that actually graduated! That's not an easy feat...approx. 50% of the guide dog puppies don't make it to graduation so when you have one that does, it's quite a wonderful feeling. Alex started raising Guide Dogs when she was in 7th grade after hearing the a blind woman speak about her life with her Guide Dog. This woman was the sister of one of Alex's middle school teachers at Centennial Middle School and she inspired Alex so much, that Alex came home that day and said that she wanted to raise a Guide Dog. I kind of nodded my head and thought..oh my gosh, that sounds like a lot of work...and then tabled that discussion! A month or so later, I was at a training session at the Humane Society for people who wanted to foster puppies (yes, we were going to do that...shorter duration, cute, darling puppies) when I met a woman/puppy raiser from the Boulder Guide Dog Puppy Raiser group...a wonderful group of volunteer puppy raisers for Guide Dogs for the Blind. Jill talked to me about raising a guide dog, the sense of accomplishment, the paying it forward aspect, how rewarding it was...that I went home and told Alex that I was ready to help her raise a Guide Dog puppy. Mind you, I said "help" not raise! Anyway, that started our journey with raising Guide Dogs...and to date, we have raised 3....or should I say, Alex, has raised 3. We co-raised our first one, Bosley, with a classmate of Alex's. He was a beautiful Black Lab with a stubborn streak and didn't make it to graduation. Our second one, Rufus, was also co-raised and he was a darling, lovable Yellow Lab that due to excessive flatulence (yes, flatulence!) and excessive drooling, and stress induced colitis...didn't make it either. Then along came Mercury, a darling, energetic black lab that Alex raised all by herself (with some help from Mom and Dad!). Many of you met Mercury at Clutter...he was often sitting behind the cash stand with his nose out in front...observing all who came in and went out. It wasn't easy to raise Mercury, Alex had to wake up with him in the middle of the night when he had "issues", she had to clean out kennels that had been soiled (fortunately, this didn't happen often), she had to take him to school and the movies and the mall, etc. etc. She had to feed him and walk him and care for him. She had to endure the teasing of classmates when they said that he was going to fail because he was so unruly. It's a big job and at times, we wondered whether it was worth it....and now we know it is! Last Saturday we were fortunate to go to his graduation in Portland, Oregon at the beautiful Guide Dogs for the Blind Campus. We met Mercury's new "handler", the man, who in a year will be considered his owner, if all goes well. Keith Bundy has been blind from birth and he is the Associate Dean of Students at South Dakota State University, where he is charge of the counseling office and he also teaches computer skills to disabled students, he hunts and he goes to sporting events, he's active on Facebook....and he does all this blind. He has had 2 previous Guide Dogs and Mercury is his third. Guide Dogs only work for about 8-10 years, then they just get a bit too old and they retire and live out the rest of their lives as pet dogs. Keith is a wonderful man with a wonderful family...a loving wife and 4 handsome sons. Not only is he the Associate Dean but he is also a pastor. We came away from this experience knowing that Mercury is going to have a wonderful life and Keith's life is going to be made that much more wonderful because of Mercury! I am so proud of my daughter and of the wonderful, darling, energetic black lab that she raised! If you want to find out more about Guide Dogs and raising them, check out the Guide Dog for the Blind website:
www.guidedogs.com. You can also check out the Boulder Puppy Raiser group by going to this website:
www.boulderpuppies.org
While there is no longer a guide dog puppy at Clutter (who knows, maybe someday we'll raise another one!), there are a lot of other great things....check out all of the pictures below and come on in to see them in person!
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