PICKING UP BUCKY IN FLORIDA: Wednesday October 9th, 2013
We arrived at SEGDI (Southeastern Guide Dogs) after driving 17 hours from Houston to Palmetto (just south of Tampa, Florida.) The campus is pretty impressive at 25 acres., with an expansion coming.
http://www.guidedogs.org/
We had a campus tour, including the whelping/breeding/puppy kennels - for the ever popular Puppy Hugging. Three little tiny golden retriever puppies came out and scampered across everyone's hearts.
We identified ourselves as Puppy Raisers coming in to pick up our puppy (with big goofy proud grins on our face) and received so much praise and recognition that both John and I choked up. (YES, I did see John with a little moisture in his eyes! CRIKEY!)
We also stopped at the IFT (In For Training) building to see some of the dogs that have returned to College to pursue and perfect their Guide Dog skills. Much to my surprise it was really noisy and sounded like an unruly Frat House! I am sure their Puppy Raisers would be appalled. They told us they had 107 dogs IFT - and 28 more were coming the next day, and 11 were going out. Some were two to a kennel, and some were dorms with 7 to a kennel. YIKES! That's a lot of dogs!
After signing papers pledging to do all sorts of things, ESPECIALLY and MOST importantly, to return the dog when requested in one year, we got to meet BUCKY!
Bucky bounded out and jumped into John's lap. John was thrilled and grinned from ear to ear. He sure did squirm and squiggle his skinny little body a lot (BUCKY - NOT John!) After John stopped squealing I got down and Bucky leaped into my lap for our introductions.
That night we drove to Marianna, Florida. The first hotel we stopped at had a sign saying "No Pets - Service Dogs Allowed". (NOTE: BIG grin on my face!!!) Little Bucky did us proud - riding the elevator, sleeping through the night and not making any messes. At breakfast he sat quietly at our table and was the perfect Guide Dog puppy. (NOTE: big proud goofy grin on my face!)
We arrived at Bucky's new home the next day - a total of about 17 hours after he left Florida. Little Bucky was a trooper and just sat in my lap so quiet the whole time.
Bucky is a good puppy.
We arrived at SEGDI (Southeastern Guide Dogs) after driving 17 hours from Houston to Palmetto (just south of Tampa, Florida.) The campus is pretty impressive at 25 acres., with an expansion coming.
http://www.guidedogs.org/
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| Puppy Hugging |
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| John in his glory Puppy Hugging |
We also stopped at the IFT (In For Training) building to see some of the dogs that have returned to College to pursue and perfect their Guide Dog skills. Much to my surprise it was really noisy and sounded like an unruly Frat House! I am sure their Puppy Raisers would be appalled. They told us they had 107 dogs IFT - and 28 more were coming the next day, and 11 were going out. Some were two to a kennel, and some were dorms with 7 to a kennel. YIKES! That's a lot of dogs!
After signing papers pledging to do all sorts of things, ESPECIALLY and MOST importantly, to return the dog when requested in one year, we got to meet BUCKY!
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| John and Bucky meet |
That night we drove to Marianna, Florida. The first hotel we stopped at had a sign saying "No Pets - Service Dogs Allowed". (NOTE: BIG grin on my face!!!) Little Bucky did us proud - riding the elevator, sleeping through the night and not making any messes. At breakfast he sat quietly at our table and was the perfect Guide Dog puppy. (NOTE: big proud goofy grin on my face!)
We arrived at Bucky's new home the next day - a total of about 17 hours after he left Florida. Little Bucky was a trooper and just sat in my lap so quiet the whole time.
Bucky is a good puppy.
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