Raising Guide Dog Puppies: Nurturing Life-Changing Heroes for the Visually Impaired

This episode explores the heartwarming journey of puppy raisers and the impact they make on both dogs and humans. Roxanne and Jim have been volunteer guide dog puppy raisers for over 18 years, and Donna is a recipient of a guide dog named Wella. They discuss the process of raising guide dog puppies, the training involved, and the importance of socializing the dogs. They also highlight the need for more puppy raisers and the life-changing impact that guide dogs have on their handlers. The episode concludes with information on International Guide Dog Day and how to support guide dog organizations.

Key Takeaways

• Puppy raisers play a crucial role in the training and socialization of guide dogs for the blind.
• Guide dog organizations breed their own dogs and carefully select them based on genetics and temperament.
• Puppy raisers expose the dogs to various environments and experiences to prepare them for their future roles.
• Guide dogs provide independence and confidence to their handlers, significantly improving their quality of life.
• There is a constant need for more puppy raisers to meet the demand for guide dogs.
• International Guide Dog Day is celebrated on April 24th and raises awareness about the importance of guide dogs.

Shoutouts in this episode:
Donna Mack, The Disability Diplomat
Guide Dogs for the Blind

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Transcript

Amy Castro (00:00.078)
Have you ever wondered what it's like to raise a pup destined to become a guide dog for the blind? In this episode, we're going to uncover the heartwarming journey of puppy raisers and the impact they make on both dogs and humans alike. We'll also hear from somebody who is a recipient of a guide dog and learn how her life has been positively changed by having her dog Wella by her side. From the challenges they face to the incredible bonds formed, get ready to be inspired. 

You're listening to Starlight Pet Talk the podcast for pet parents who want the best pet care advice from cat experts, dog trainers, veterinarians, and other top pet professionals who will help you live your very best life with your pets. 

Welcome to Starlight Pet Talk. I'm your host, Amy Castro. My guests today share a decade -long friendship.

Roxanne Lassen, along with her husband Jim, have served as volunteer guide dog puppy raisers for more than 18 years and are now currently raising their 11th guide dog puppy for guide dogs for the blind. Roxanne retired from law enforcement after almost 30 years of service in the field. She's a tops weight loss advocate and leads a ceramics class for senior adults. And she enjoys crafting, running, travel, and camping with her husband Jim, all while training future guide dogs in a safe and loving environment.

Donna Mack, otherwise known as the Disability Diplomat, is a consultant who works with businesses that want to grow profits and transform cultures by increasing disability access and inclusion. She's done so for the past 10 years with her beautiful Black Lab guide dog, Wella, by her side. Donna has served on committees for national employment, regional transportation, and ADA access for both the AT &T Stadium and Globe Life Field. In November 2021,

Amy Castro (02:15.341)
She was appointed disability access lead for the Dallas World Cup, 2026 human rights planning committee, creating the first human rights plan for sport. Ladies, welcome to the show. Glad to have you here. So Roxanne, I'd like to go ahead and kind of kick off and start with you because we're going to, we'll just kind of follow the puppy's timeline, whatever you want to call it. So what.

inspired you to get involved in raising puppies because I've got a couple of puppies in my hallway right now, which my daughter is trying to wrangle so that we can record this show and puppies are a handful. Absolutely. One of the gals I worked with who's a close friend, she was raising a guide dog and she was bringing it to work and I just got really inspired by her and she invited me to join their puppy club meetings. So I started going there and

My son was very interested. My son is night blind. He can see during the day, but he can't see at night. And so anything to do with vision issues really inspired me. And so my son and I, when he was in fifth grade, started going to clubs and got a puppy and started raising puppies. And now 20 plus years later, I'm on my 11th dog. But so it's a lot of fun and it's just an amazing experience.

That's great. I mean, more power to you. I wish I had somebody raising these puppies over here. But, uh, so what, what do you, I assume you have to go through some kind of training to raise these puppies or is it just basic puppy care, housebreaking, things like that, that you're training? How does that part work? There's a little process. You just fill out a form and it goes to a club leader and the club leader then contacts you and then they do some checks and they want to make sure that you have the right house and you have the abilities.

raise a puppy safely because they care about their dogs. Right. Like I was wondering about swimming pools because that's always a dicey thing. We've got a pool in our backyard and when we have any dogs out there it's always watching them because they've fallen in before. And that's what so in order to have a dog they make sure that you have a place you can put the dog and kennel it outside if you have to be outside and we have a pool and not a problem but they just check and...

Amy Castro (04:29.678)
They make sure it's a safe environment that if you go outside, you have fenced area that you can put the dog in. Or if you have an apartment, you can raise a dog and live in an apartment. That's fine. You just have to have the dog on leash. So you start going to puppy club meetings and now they have a lot of stuff online, a lot of videos online and they have manuals to kind of tell you what to do. They teach you how to puppy train. So it's a combination between reading the stuff online and seeing videos and going to the puppy clubs because...

just like people, every single puppy is different. And you raise a couple and you think, oh, I got this down. And then the next one comes along and you're like, what? So it's a lot of fun. There's a lot of instruction during the classes. I mean, during the puppy club meetings and stuff that we do, and we do a lot of outings. So the leaders are really helpful to help you navigate through all the different problems you may have with puppy, but they teach you and you get.

you quickly learn how to deal with almost every issue coming along with the dog. So it's a lot of fun and there's always tons of support for you. They have so many things that they do and it's really neat because the Guide Dogs is a birth to death organization. They will take care of the dog from the time it's born and they'll financially take care of the dog and make sure that it has a loving home forever basically.

That's great. So at what age do you get the puppies and then does that vary? And then how long do you actually have the puppies? So we get the puppies after eight weeks, they're available to go to the puppy raiser. So I've had puppies eight weeks old and I've had puppies that came to me at 11 weeks old. We were taking a break and then I saw the picture of the cute little puppy and I, okay, we can take another one. We can start raising early, but we get them about eight weeks old.

And we are puppy raisers. We teach basic skills for the dogs. I always tell people it's like raising a child through high school and then they go off to college. So we teach obedience, we teach house breaking and we also expose them to everything we can because when they go back to guide dogs, they want to focus on all the specific training for the blind, you know, to teach them all those really finite skills that standard puppy raiser will never be able to.

Amy Castro (06:48.974)
teach to the dog. So we get them prepared for life. We want to make sure that they won't have an adverse reaction to something. For example, if we go to state fair and there's a Ferris wheel and the dog panics, somebody who's blind will never understand what the dog's panicking over. So it's really important for puppy raisers to go everywhere with the dogs to make sure that they don't have a fear or a bad reaction. So we raise them up until about

14 months, anywhere from, they can go back as early as like 13 months and as late as 18 months. It depends on availability at the center to start the training and also depends on the dog because some dogs are just really dialed, kind of like kids, some kids could go to college in 10th grade, where other ones, you know, it's 12th grade, maybe a little longer before they're prepared to take on the next step. So they evaluate the dogs constantly, but it's a lot of fun.

So I would assume then that when you're in that phase and working with that puppy, do you basically take them out on your outings? Maybe not every single time, but try to get them out every single outing that you go on and just, are there specific, do you take the puppies with you all the time? I guess would be one question. And then, are there specific milestones or scenarios that you're trying to hit to have those puppies experience those things? Basically the dog is with you.

all the time almost when you're leaving. It is he's like when we raise a dog, it's either with me or my husband. We rarely leave him at home. Occasionally you have to kennel them and leave them at home because of the environment might not be suitable for the dog, especially in the early months. But our dog goes with us. We make sure we go out to restaurants. We teach the dog to go onto the table at restaurants. When we go bowling every week, we belong to bowling league. It goes with us and it sits right there. And so,

The dogs pretty much go everywhere you go. And we also puppy swap between different razors. So one of our razors works in an OB office. And so the dog goes with her and then goes out and sees all the mothers and stuff when she's on the floor and they all, they enjoy it tremendously. So the dogs get different environments because we never know the client that gets a dog where they're gonna work. But we do make sure.

Amy Castro (09:13.806)
We do public transit outings because most of us don't ride buses and stuff all the time, but we make sure the dogs go on trains and they go on buses and they have those different experiences. Again, we take them to plays and baseball games and every place we can do, we try and make sure this dog has about every well -rounded experience it possibly could to find out, to make sure it's confident and it's like, oh, this isn't new, this is...

This is fun stuff. This is great. So that's what we do. That's, that's just, it's sounds like a lot of work, but like, I'm sure it's very, very rewarding and going through that process. I also think it's just, it's just so interesting in my mind, trying to imagine that age range. I mean, eight to 14 weeks, that's a young puppy, you know, to be out and experiencing all those, those things. Um, where, where do these puppies come from and how are they selected for the program? I don't know if you can address that just on a, on a high level. I mean,

Are they raising them for this? Are they getting them from elsewhere? How does that go? So guide dogs for the blind, that's the only place I can talk about. They actually breed their own dogs and they've been really good and they watch the genetics. They can go back years and years and generations of these dogs and they breed out a lot of the genetic markers for diseases. For example, they have one disease that causes blindness early in dogs. They've tested all the dogs and

none of the dogs that have that marker are ever bred. So they really pick the best of the best and then they'll swap dogs with other organizations to make sure that they aren't interbreeding the dogs. So, you know, they want to make sure that they have good, clean, healthy lines, but so they breed them within their groups. They don't take outside dogs. And so that's how they get their puppies. Okay. Yeah. So then they've got that, uh, that history that kind of goes along with it. Cause we've done some episodes on,

you know, purebred dogs versus mixed breed dogs and things like that. And, you know, I think that's just, that is one advantage to breeding dogs is you have that level of control over not only health, but temperament. I've got to assume that temperament is a huge piece of that selection process. Are there ever puppies that they have that go through that program that kind of don't make the cut? Oh, absolutely. They, they can have dogs that are way too hyper because in a dog that can't settle, can't lead somebody.

Amy Castro (11:39.086)
I had one dog who just lacked confidence. She was scared of loud noises. When a box truck would go by, she would panic. And you get dogs that have various things. They could have body sensitivity where they cannot handle a harness on them. And so with those dogs, they don't just say, okay, make it a pet. They try and find another organization that it would be good for. They can become diabetic dogs. They could become EOD for the...

the law enforcement and stuff, like working at the airports and stuff. So they look at another true service organization to give the dogs to. And now they, like Guide Dogs has a cool program where they make them buddy dogs for people with visual issues, like a child. One of my dogs is in Washington with a little boy who's blind. And so that child learns how to take care of a dog. And that was my scared dog. And it's perfect because they snuggle and the dog's a pet because that's the only thing she could have been.

And that's a good program because it goes still to somebody who needs a dog. That's great. That's yeah, that's because that's what I was wondering. Do they just get maybe adopted out as pets? But that's that's good that they're looking for, you know, because everybody's got their strengths, right? And so it might not be being a direct guide dog, but might benefit somebody in some other way, especially, you know, like you mentioned, when when so much time and effort has gone into breeding and training the dogs. I hate to say, well, just to make it a pet, but the dog has a lot more potential to help.

to help people than your average pet. So that's good to know. So one of my questions that I was thinking about was how big of a need is there for people to raise puppies? Is it like people are on a waiting list or you're constantly looking for new people? They are always looking for new puppy raisers. That need is always there because without having puppy raisers, the trainers, they can't raise the puppy and train. So there is definitely...

a huge need for puppy raisers to the point where actually they're, they're even expanding and they're doing this hybrid class where people who live further out and we have one gentleman who lives about two hours from us. He's been coming to our meetings and he's a perfect candidate to try and be a puppy raiser and do zoom classes. And so he's, it's the extended remote raisers. So that's how much raisers are needed that they're really expanding the program and trying to get more people involved.

Amy Castro (14:06.126)
And that's good to know is that I know you're Roxanne, you're in California is I mean, are they looking for puppy raisers there or does guide dogs for the blind have people all over the country all over the world? What's their reach from that perspective? So they they give dogs to people in Canada and the United States. Those are that's their primary area that they give dogs to. But they raise them the West Coast kind of. So Washington, Texas has clubs.

up and down the coast. So it's kind of the Western region that they have clubs. Now they may be, I'm not sure if they're expanding with this new groups and stuff of what they're doing. I know they just put out something. They're changing the way they're giving dogs. They have dogs in Colorado that are being raised, Arizona. So it's all over, but to find out more that they do have the link and stuff that to find out and they'll put you in touch with the people.

That's what I was going to ask, because if we can get a link, if somebody's listening and saying, hey, I could do that, or I would love to try that, you know, we want to make sure we can point them in the right direction for that for sure. Do you ever find that, because what I run into in running an animal rescue, number one, I have a real hard time getting dog fosters. I think, you know, fostering a dog or a puppy is probably more work than fostering a kitten or a cat that you could put, you know, kind of in a spare bedroom with a litter box and not have to...

necessarily take it out multiple times a day, but what people oftentimes worry about is I'm gonna get attached and how am I gonna give that puppy up? How did you get past that, especially with your first puppy? The first one I think is actually the hardest, but we talked to a bunch of people and it was recommended to us as a family because my son was only in, I think the sixth grade by the time we sent back our first dog for the formal training.

So we dropped off Amelie was our very first dog. We dropped off Amelie and we picked up a new puppy on the same day. So it would be like sending your child to college and having a baby because you absolutely didn't have time. You missed the dog, but you didn't have time to truly grieve or anything the missing because you had a puppy to deal with. So I always tell people the first one, get a new puppy the same day and it changes everything, but it's.

Amy Castro (16:24.078)
You know, it's sad and stuff, but it's not like you lost the pet. The pet has just moved on to the next formal part of the training and we don't own the dogs. The dogs are owned by guide dogs. And I think having that in your mind that this isn't your dog. It helps. Plus we puppy swap a lot. So our dogs aren't always with us. They always go to different raisers. And I think seeing all the other dogs and keeping involved really helps a lot. Yeah.

I would think so. And that's an interesting point that you made about, you know, reminding yourself that it's not your dog. I always try to tell people that do foster, whether it's dogs or cats, is that, you know, think about it that you're just watching, you know, you're watching that animal for Amy for a week, two weeks, whatever, you know, a month, whatever the timeframe is. And to make sure you're, because we get a lot of crying children when things get returned, especially as they get older and they realize, you know, it's to try to remind them that you're just...

You're just babysitting. You're not, uh, this is not your puppy or not your kittens. So that helps, but still, you know, like you said, the first one is always, I still remember my little first batch of kittens that I fostered. It's, it's hard to let go of the first one, but I also think the more you do it, the easier it is to let go. Cause you realize you're part of a process and you've got to keep the process moving so that somebody who needs that dog gets that dog. And now you're onto training the next one. Yep. Absolutely. Definitely. So, um,

Donna, so I assume that there is a whole process on your end as the, you know, as the recipient of the dog. What was your process that you went through to get Wella and how did you get hooked up with the organization? So I had to go to the website and apply. And what made me choose the school is that I don't have a whole lot of friends in the blindness community, but the ones that I.

do have almost everybody had gotten their dogs from Guide Dogs for the Blind. I know a few people who have used other schools and yeah, it's kind of like what car do you prefer? It's a very individual choice, but I looked into guide dogs and because they're a nonprofit school and most schools are nonprofit, nonprofit schools provide dogs at little or no cost to the eventual handler. And so...

Amy Castro (18:44.878)
Guide Dogs for the Blind is the largest guide dog school in North America. They're run strictly on donations. So they pay for the training. They put you up when you're out there. Got a very nice dorm facility. Everybody has a private room. You have access to computers and workout equipment for the very limited time that you're not in class. Everybody's got a little tiny patio area and it's kind of cool because there's a little relief area on.

beyond the patio. I mean, it's just so the dog that the dog is staying with you in those facilities while you're there going to the train. That's the dog is there. You get there on a Sunday class starts on a Monday. You meet your dogs Monday afternoon, which is like the most exciting time ever. And you know, as far as the application process, you are required to have.

three routes I think that you know by heart and can use a cane, well, I mean, for the first time. If you've never applied for a dog before, you would be able to navigate independently with either a cane or a dog that would be at least a quarter mile one way from your home or your place of business. And the thing is, a lot of people are like, well, how does the dog know when it's safe to cross the street?

because I tell them, because I listen to the flow of traffic and I tell the dog it's safe to cross the street. The dog knows where to turn left or right on a route because I tell her and they do know left from right. You use a combination of verbal commands and footwork and hand gestures with the dogs for them to do left and right and you know, and some of the other commands too. They pause at the edge of a step. But again, I have to have the skills to be able to navigate.

independently so that I can teach the dog the route once I get the dog. I just never really thought about the fact that you would have to know the route in order to teach the dog the route because you're right the dog doesn't know how to walk to the grocery store. So as somebody who's a you know international speaker how does Wella know or how do you if you're in a strange airport or if you're going from your hotel room to the conference room or the stage that you're speaking how does Wella know?

Amy Castro (21:06.542)
How does that work? It kind of depends on the situation. I've been in some hotels that were huge and their layout was... I mean, the room layout was almost in the round, which is just... For a blind person, that's just hell. Okay? But do you know what I'm talking about? Where there are no corners, there are no hallways, nothing is laid out like a grid at all. Okay.

You know, it's very round and in situations like that, if I'm at a conference, man, I will, I will buddy up to somebody in the conference because Wella is a great follower of crowds. You know, I've had several conferences where, I mean, if people are going to a general session, man, she'll just go right to it and just follow the herd. Yeah. But, but by the same token, you know, she's a little bit like Moses because.

Oh, she can part the waters and across. She can find a way through. She will make a way through a crowd too. But if it's, if it's a fairly small hotel, what I usually do or, or if the, you know, if it looks like the route will be easy, I usually just tip staff a little bit more whenever I first arrived to kind of help me figure out how to get from the front door to the concierge desk, to the elevator, to my room and hope and.

you know, whenever I book a room, I try to make it something where even though nobody really wants to be close to the, to the elevator, I want to be close to the elevator. I gotta go leave my dog. I, you know, I don't need to be weaving through, walking through half the hotel before I get to the elevator because it's, it's not that I can't, you know, put the steps in. It's that it's, it's intellectually, it's kind of fatiguing after a while, you know, and I have to find a good place to relieve her. So I, I want to be.

hopefully somewhere where once I get down to the main floor, I've got easy access to outside. That's always helpful. There is a service, it's a paid service that I subscribe to called Aira and it's sort of like FaceTime on steroids. It's a app, but it utilizes the camera in your phone and you put through to a live agent.

Amy Castro (23:24.238)
So sometimes they can pull up a map of a hotel or an airport and help you through that. A lot of the airports do actually provide free iris service, which is great. Other than that, you know, I wind up using what we used to call sky caps, but you know, the ground services people at the airport that get you from, you know, the kiosk to your gate. And I will just tell Willa to follow. And she's really good at that.

I would wonder, I bet you there's, I mean, there's gotta be a certain number of people who are just not up to that task. Cause that sounds like a lot of work, you know, mentally, physically. It can be, but I mean, it's, it's really worth it. I can walk a lot faster. The coolest advantage that I never, it's one of those reasons that you never knew you had until you got the dog is that like before I got Wella, um, I was using a cane and.

I could walk around my, I could take a mile walk around my neighborhood and nobody, not a soul would speak to me. And since I've had Wella, I mean, there are some times that I just don't really encounter anybody, but most of the time when I walk with her, people, people speak and you know, it's because I can't make eye contact with you to say, Oh yeah, I'm approachable. You and cited people.

Unless they've had experience with somebody who's blind or visually impaired, they don't know that and they're not going to think about it because it doesn't impact their lives. You know, so it's like, she's really opened that up for me and I'm a very extroverted person. She's a very extroverted dog. So, you know, that's just been a godsend. And as a speaker, if I could, oh my God, if I could work a room like Wella, my bank account would be a lot bigger. She is...

I mean, she's just, she's funny. She, I think that somebody from the puppy club, they had notes that they gave us from Roxanne and Jim and their family, but also from like a couple members of the puppy club. And I think their, their club president had, had referred to Wella as an enthusiastic greeter and oh my God, it's so true. She just has the biggest personality in every.

Amy Castro (25:46.702)
Everybody loves her. Advantages of getting her again, it pains take you, they show you obstacles. Dogs help you avoid them. So I, you know, I walk more smoothly and have a more natural gait. I walk quick. You know, I walk more quickly. I get to take my dog everywhere, which is, I mean, well, virtually there are places I won't take her, but she's been great. She's such a sensitive, it's not the worst. She's just such an intuitive dog. I mean, I have.

gone through hard times before, you know, like, you know how we all just have seasons that are, that are really difficult. And when I'm, you know, when I've gone through anything like that, she will come and if I'm sitting, she'll put her front paws on my quads and she'll, she'll lick my cheek. If I'm standing, she will stand up, put her paws on my chest and lick my cheek. And to me, that's a hug and a kiss.

And I've seen her do that with friends and family members. The time that it shocked me probably the most is I had a friend who came over and something, you know, something pretty awful had happened with one of her kids and she was very concerned. And, you know, she, she kind of, we're just, you know, sitting in my kitchen talking and Wella came up to her and did that to her. And it was like, oh, I mean, and that's just, that's Wella being who she is. That's, you know, not a trained response.

Yeah, and you've mentioned that before. I mean, you've got a 10 year relationship with this dog spending 24 seven with the dog that they've got to pick up on your cues, your personal preferences, things that they couldn't have learned in training, but they learn through their everyday interactions with you as their handler and partner, like you said. Oh, for sure. For sure. Yeah, that's accurate. Love doesn't have to be taught.

devotion doesn't have to be taught. And that speaks, that situation right there speaks more to our connection than to her training. Yeah, that's a good point. You had mentioned before that you had already, I forget what the terminology was. You didn't say replacement for well, but the successor dog. I applied for successor. Yeah. So how does that process work? And then what happens with Wella and cause you would keep her, right? Oh, yeah.

Amy Castro (28:12.878)
I mean, that's, that's my personal choice. There are some folks who maybe they live in an apartment or they have a situation where they really, you know, physically or financially can't keep their dog. Well, it is family and you know, I have certain criteria for that dog. And so they look at what they have available and they look at my criteria and fortunately I do get to keep well.

She just gets to be a dog of leisure, but they will let me know when they have a match. So I think Wella will love having a sister. It is going to break my heart to leave her at the house. I've also heard that the dogs, the dogs adjust to the change a whole lot easier and quicker and painless, you know, more painless. Like that's okay. I'm just going to stay here and watch my soap operas. Well, and the thing about it is, I mean,

Really the time I would leave her would be fairly rarely because I am self -employed. It's not like she's gonna have to be sitting alone a lot. And then when I travel, I've got to make arrangements for Wella because I can only, once Wella is retired, she can no longer guide me. Yeah, that's kind of the rule. You get a new dog, you can only have one guide, one active guide.

And that doesn't mean, oh, well, I'll just take Wella and I will go to the store and leave the new dog. We can't do that unless Wella just goes as a passenger in the car without the harness. Interesting. I didn't know that either. See, I'm learning all kinds of stuff today. And for somebody else, they may have to find a family member. Like if something happened and I couldn't keep Wella, I would ask my kids, who would fight over who got to keep her? Yeah, who wouldn't want the perfect dog?

Yeah. And, and if for any reason that didn't happen, Roxanne and I have already had the conversation, you know, she's put it out there and said, you know, we would take her if anything ever happened that, you know, your kids couldn't do that. And, and the reason we went, yeah, the only reason we wouldn't say, Oh, bring her back here is because the, the kids have spent so many more years with the dog at this point than we did because we had the first year that they have a better connection. But well, when I visited Donna,

Amy Castro (30:38.126)
So we went to visit her in Texas and she's also come out here. Wella knows us. Oh, she totally knows. It's crazy. It's just, she gets so excited. So we would take her back in a heartbeat. It was kind of neat for me and I hope it wasn't too bittersweet for Roxanne. I went out to California about a year and a half after Wella and I graduated and...

We we met at a restaurant and oh my gosh, it was so funny because it's like well it was in harness, but you know all guide dog behavior, you know guide dog behavior be damned because Well, I'm so excited. She she jumped up on her I Believe she was actually a guide dog. It's like no no really the guide dog She's excited to see her first mom

She was, she was. And, and so, um, I, she did settle down very quickly, but it was kind of funny, but well, it was very excited to see Roxanne and Jim. And it was kind of cool because we were taking pictures out in front of this restaurant before we left. And I had taken pictures with the two of them and Wella. And then my daughter was taking the pictures and I went and stood by my daughter and.

was gonna, you know, leave Wella with them. And at one point Wella, I mean, even though they had the leash, she kind of like, well, that's my mom, I gotta go with my mom. You know, and I'm like, no, it's okay, I'm right here, you can stay with them. And it was kind of like she was going, I love y 'all, but this is where I need to be now. It was kind of sweet, it was like, you know, you know she was torn because she loved them too. But she knew that this was.

This is what she was born to do. But oh, well, she's such a good girl. Oh, she's a wonderful girl. I just, I, I cannot imagine life without her. She is, she's just joyful. If she were a person, we would have been arrested by now. Y 'all have been all kind of trouble. Oh, we would have been in all kinds of trouble. So, and I mean, I, I just cannot begin to say thank you enough because she is just such an amazing dog. And.

Amy Castro (32:54.606)
Roxanne and Jim and Sam and Ryan did just such a great job with her. That's awesome. That's awesome. Well, it's amazing what you guys have accomplished and the work that Roxanne and her family put into the dog and the life that you've provided. Well, Donna, it's just incredibly, it's totally heartwarming. And I don't say that, I don't use that word because that's not me, but it's just really.

It really is. It makes you feel good to know that there are people out there that are willing to put that time and effort into raising a puppy for somebody else and the impact that it has on that person's life when they've got that dog that, you know, it's, it's literally life -changing, it sounds like based on what you've shared with us. So thank you so much. It totally is. It totally is. It's just amazing what, what she has opened up. I just didn't, I didn't know what I was missing.

Yeah, you don't know what you don't know, right? Oh, exactly. And she's, she's a sweetheart and it's nice to be able to walk into places with a lot of confidence. And, uh, you know, that's, that's what she provides. She provides a lot of independence in situations where maybe I could be independent, but it would be a whole lot more awkward. Cause again, I'd be encountering obstacles and instead of going around them. Yeah, definitely.

Okay, so before we wrap this up, is there any other, you know, kind of final thoughts, points, comments you all want to make? Yeah, the one point I want to make is the point that we've kind of gotten away from that this year, 2024, April 24th is International Guide Dog Day. And last year, there was a picture that I had submitted to Guide Dogs for the Blind that they chose to use Wella as their face of International Guide Dog Day 2023.

And the photo was taken by my photographer friend, Rhonda Moore Strickland. And I really wanted an ambassador pic. And so this is what they used on all their social media and just, you know, wanted to be here to kind of raise awareness. Yeah, I totally forgot about that point, which was the whole point of us having this conversation. Oh, well, I just got wrapped up in the conversation. I forgot why we were here, but that's okay.

Amy Castro (35:10.062)
And the link for guide dogs is www .guide dogs .com. Right. And if people, if people want to donate, I think it's donations .guide dogs .com. And the biggest thing is when you go to it, make sure it's a guide. The one that Donna that I raised for and Donna, it's the one that's located in San Rafael. Cause there's different, different places, but everybody has a preference. And the key is that it's about providing the dogs to give the support for people.

And that's the best thing. And going back to your comment of how do you give up the dogs? And I think the testament of what the relationship that Donna and I have, that makes it so much easier for me to give a dog away back to them and raise a dog because you see the people that get the dogs and guide dogs is very good at making sure the puppies are well taken care of after we release them back. And that's huge.

The bond is huge. Yeah. I know. It's the same thing with me and rescue. It's like, if you know that that animal is going to a, which, you know, we try to make sure that all the animals that we release go to good homes and, but, you know, sometimes, you know, some are just going to be special, you know, or just different than others or, or you get feedback from the people, you know, you get the photos of the animal with their baby or the animal with them on vacation, the animals going camping and you're like, yep, that was a good one.

That was a good choice. It makes you feel good. Thank you both so much for being here and for sharing your experiences. And for all of our listeners, make sure you share this episode with your puppy loving friends because there obviously is a very great need for puppy raisers. And you can just see the impact that it's going to have on somebody's life when you put in that work to raise that puppy. So thank you all for listening to another episode of Starlight Pet Talk. Thanks for listening to Starlight Pet Talk.

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