Leading with Love, the local Guide Dogs for the Blind puppy raising club in Colorado Springs, will be conducting their monthly outing on Nov. 17.
The club, consisting of up to nine guide dog puppies in training, will be riding the Colorado Springs Mountain Metropolitan Transit Route 3 bus to Manitou Springs to walk around, get used to riding the bus, and to do some obedience exercises. These types of outings are essential in the development of these very special dogs before they go through formal guide dog training.
When the puppies are 8-9 weeks old, they are ready for their first road trip. They say goodbye to their birthplace, the San Rafael campus, and embark on the first leg of their journey toward becoming guide dogs. They are loaded up in the Puppy Truck, which is specially designed with their safety and comfort in mind. The truck makes dozens of trips throughout the year, and is driven by agency staff "puppy storks," who delivers the special cargo to the arms of eagerly waiting volunteer puppy raisers.
Puppies are raised in the following western states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, Utah, and Washington. Puppy raisers are responsible for the basic training (sit, stay, down, come) as well as socializing the puppy to make sure it is comfortable with all sorts of things it will encounter when being a guide dog. The puppy should be comfortable riding on a bus or in the car, walking through the grocery store without eating the produce that has dropped on the ground, sit quietly at work, school or in a restaurant. The puppy raisers try to expose their puppy to everyday life experiences.
