HOLY COW!!!

Yesterday we went to visit Guide Dogs for the Blind in San Rafael (about 30-4o minutes south of Santa Rosa). Holy Cow! I've never seen anything like it in all dog-dom. The campus (!) is quite extensive. Buildings and buildings, manicured grounds, fountains, dormitories, a swimming pool, kennels and kennels and kennels, a vet clinic-all of it built on donations. Guide Dogs has owned the property since the late 40's and has been building, expanding, adding, and renovating ever since. They bring 40 dogs in every month from puppy homes all across the United States-they have 800 puppies (!!) either at the facility or in puppy homes. They have 8-12 graduations per year. It just blows my mind. The good news is that they've recently (1-2 years ago) switched over from using heavy punishment based training to clicker training (positive reinforcement training) YEA! They have had overwhelming success-dogs are able to be trained faster, they're more sound (because they're not working out of fear) and they have a higher success rate. It was incredible to see that a facility of that size was built on donations-it can be done!! And that the change to clicker training has been so successful-incredibly reaffirming for me!!

On a sad note-I had to say goodbye to my puppy, Xian. I took her to puppy class on Thursday night to work with her puppy foster mom (who has been fostering her for awhile apart from the two weeks I've had her). The foster mom took her home from there. I won't see her again and I will miss her!!! She had made great progress in the time I had her. For the next two weeks, Kyria and I will be sharing her pup, Nigel. Nigel just came here a couple weeks ago (he is 6 months) and so he needs a lot of work! He will definitely benefit from our attention.

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