News from North Carolina

Hey Everyone!

It's been such a long time since I've blogged! :( So very sorry! I'll do my best to bring everyone up to speed on what's been happening.....(the following events are not in chronological order...I'm just throwing in everything I can remember!)

1. We had a fabulous 5K race in Wilmington thanks to Angie and the wonderful Wilmington chapter. Lots of support, runners, dogs and paws4people fans. It was great to have so many of us in the same place at once. Truly a rarity!!

2. Eliot Swiger and CAYLIE passed their public access test on the 23rd. Way to go Eliot and CAYLIE! They did a really great job together. I did have to make sure that Eliot knew (as well as Matt) that both of them have had it really easy....Kathy and Lisa worked very hard to get CAMDEN and CAYLIE past their public access "hump"! Then the men breeze in and say "what's so hard about this??" gotta love it :)

3. Buf and SALLY graduated at Alderson on April 14th!!! YEA!!!! These two are such an incredible team. It was a wonderful graduation and (as always) an inspiring, humbling, emotional experience to have been involved in the lives of such an outstanding person and dog. I am grateful for every moment I've spent with both Buf and SALLY. We also got to meet Buf's dad and brother-we were so excited that they were able to come to WV to attend the graduation.

4. I had another great Alderson visit last week and had the pleasure of taking up a new yellow lab mix puppy. One of our Concord volunteers, Rebecca fostered this wonderful pup from Kreitzer's Critter Coral Puppy Rescue. She called me up one day and said "Karen, I think you'd really like this puppy! He's so relaxed and laid back-he's just what you're looking for!" Now, that is a great phone call to get! I met the puppy (who's name was KRINGLE, but is now CHANCE-our inmate trainers wanted to rename him) and he was as fabulous as she had described. Rebecca adopted him and donated him to paws4people. CHANCE is now in the loving arms of our trainers at Alderson. They are incredibly excited to have him. In fact, they all practically turned into a big pile of mush saying "he's soooo cuuuute!" when they saw him. He is absolutely adorable. Thank you Rebecca and Kreitzer's Puppy Rescue!

5. Our Concord chapter of paws4people had another dog evaluation and handler training this past Saturday at Dorton Park. Congratulations to Sheila and her dog Slate, Kelly and her dog Nikki. Both of you will be wonderful therapy dog teams! We also had several people attend handler training who are interested in working with some of our current certified dogs. Thank you everyone for coming out to learn the "in's and out's" of handling therapy dogs!

I think that brings everyone up to date....more soon!

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