February Franco Update

[This is an update from Franco, a puppy from our 'F' litter currently in his puppy raiser's home.]

Dear Mama,

January was a quiet month. Other than my trade week I spent most of my time at home. It was so relaxing after the busy holiday season.

Our Puppy Raising Community Field Representative, Cathie Laber, stopped by in early January to teach us the new "Go to Bed" exercise. While we dogs love it some of our raisers are better than others at teaching us how to do it. It is really fun for me to do. I love hearing the verbal marker "Nice!" and getting treats. Cathie made it look so easy and yet when my raiser does it we don't get results as fast as Cathie did, which just means more treats for me. For a while there I thought that you were supposed to also take the fingers while you took the treats. So that has been a little bit of a challenge for me to learn to use my soft tongue to get the treats rather than my new SHARP TEETH. It is a challenge to learn new stuff but I am sure that my raiser and I will get it sometime soon.


I went to the movies with my puppy raising club, 4 Paws for Freedom, and saw Hotel for Dogs staring Cosmo & JR as Friday. I didn't bark or whine. I just looked between the seats so I could see what was happening up there on the big screen. It's hard to see it when you are so short, on a down and in the back.

With over 70 dogs in that story that were going to end up in an animal shelter that were not going to get adopted I am so glad that our Guide Dog community is doing such a good job at finding and keeping us in safe and loving homes all of our lives by matching our needs to our potential adoptive home. I have heard that in most cases, career change dogs are adopted by their puppy raisers. That would be wonderful, but I know that others may go on to work in search and rescue, hearing or service dog training, agility, cancer detection, or pet therapy. The dogs released from our program to become pets or companions are placed in adoptive homes through our Dog Placement Program. I also understand that none of the career change dogs may be used as working guides for the visually impaired, nor have they been trained to perform tasks for persons with other special needs. I think that it is so honorable that we are well taken care of all of our lives.

With love and licks,
Franco