My Year as a Volunteer Puppy Raiser

By: Kristine Kivisto

Guide dogs for people who are blind or visually impaired typically go through guide training when they are 15 months old. So what does a young puppy do before heading off to doggy school? They spend their first year of life in a loving home with a volunteer puppy raiser! Service dog organizations need hundreds of volunteer puppy raisers in any given year, and I chose to be one for Leader Dogs for the Blind. Read on to learn about my experience during that first year of a guide dog’s life. I’ll share my knowledge and memories about:

1.      What is a Puppy Raiser

2.      My Decision to Get a Puppy

3.      Bringing Sam Home

4.      Routines & Responsibilities

5.      What We Taught Each Other

6.      Sam Goes to School

7.      Conclusion

The experience was definitely humbling, and I am very grateful to have learned so much about the amazing world of guide dogs.

What is a Puppy Raiser

A puppy raiser is a volunteer who welcomes a young puppy into their home. Puppies typically leave their littermates when they are 8 weeks old. Once in their temporary home, it is up to the puppy raiser to train them on basic obedience.

First things first, it’s all about potty training! Those first 4 weeks at home were pretty chaotic since a young puppy needs to go potty as often as every 30 minutes. But guide dogs are specially bred for their intelligence, so thankfully they do catch on very quickly.

After the basics of potty training are conquered, a puppy raiser’s main goal is to raise a well-behaved and obedient dog. This is conquered through short, daily training sessions, each lasting about 5-15 minutes. Puppy raisers use positive reinforcement training methods, meaning the raiser rewards the puppy for acting in an appropriate manner and ignores or gently distracts the puppy when they act inappropriately.

A puppy raiser only lays a solid foundation of good manners and appropriate expectations in the puppy. They don’t do any of the formal guide training; that all happens when the puppy goes back to school when they are 15 months old.

My Decision to Get a Puppy

I was interested in welcoming a dog to our home, but as I wasn’t sure how my family would react. I was up late one night looking at various options for dogs, wondering if I should adopt a senior dog, foster a dog until it is adopted, or start with a puppy.

As I fell down the rabbit hole known as YouTube, I came across this video, and I was sold. Take a few minutes to watch, and you may understand how I became inspired to join the Leader Dog mission.

I filled out my application on the Leader Dog website. After 3 weeks, a representative from Leader Dog called me to do a phone interview about my ability to raise a Leader Dog puppy.

Bringing Sam Home

For no particular reason, I had imagined the puppy I would raise would be a male black lab. I picked out a name, Zam, short for Zamboni. (We are hockey fans in this house.)

About 2 weeks after my phone interview, I got an email from Leader Dog saying they had a puppy ready for me. I was shocked, as they said it usually takes 6-9 months before a puppy is ready. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they were short on raisers and needed someone almost immediately.

The puppy they chose for me was a female golden retriever and yellow Labrador retriever mix. Not wanting to name this sweet little girl Zam, I settled on Sam, which was short for Sam Boney. (Hah! Tricky, right?! I bet you see what I did there…)

Needless to say, I went into panic mode. I went to the local pet store to get all the necessities, which to be honest wasn’t much since Leader Dog supplied many of the necessary puppy items. But I still had to get a crate, some food, a brush, and a few toys.

Finally, it was time to go pick up our puppy! There’s a bit of paperwork to fill out and hand in. Due to the no-contact orders for the pandemic, I wasn’t able to go inside the Leader Dog campus. It was very strange to just talk to someone over the phone, then walk over to a crate in the parking lot and get our puppy.

I opened the door to the crate, expecting all the fluffiness and wet puppy kisses, and was promptly met with the stench of fresh poop. Yuck! Poor Sam was so nervous that she had gone to the bathroom in the short 30 seconds that the Leader Dog representative had placed her in her crate, stepped back, and waited for me to open the crate.

No harm done, I was relieved that she had at least pooped in the Leader Dog crate instead of in my vehicle. They would clean up the mess. I was free to drive home with my adorable puppy.

Except I got exactly half a block from the Leader Dog campus when a foul stench wafted up from the back seat. Oh, no! Sam had pooped again, and this time I was on my own to clean it up. I pulled into a gas station and did the best I could, which to be honest wasn’t that great as I was ill-prepared for this type of accident!

Those first 5 minutes with Sam were very sobering, and I realized I may have gotten in over my head. Eventually, I got it all sorted out and Sam slept for the entire ride home.

Routines & Responsibilities

Life with a Future Leader Dog is easiest when days fall into a predictable routine. The puppies have endless energy, so the best thing to do is make sure there is plenty of time set aside in a day for 2-3 short walks, or 1 long walk.

But dogs don’t just get tired from physical exercise; mental stimulation is a great way to tire out a rambunctious pup. Just 15 minutes of obedience training is the equivalent of a 1-mile walk.

I would typically try to get Sam out on a walk early in the morning. It set her up for a successful day by stretching her legs and getting some of her energy out. After the walk, when she wasn’t so hyper anymore, we would practice her obedience training for 5-15 minutes.

Obedience training involves teaching the puppy all the basic commands it needs to know, such as sit, stand, stay, leave it, come, around, and heel.

For the rest of the day, Sam just got to be a dog and do dog things. This includes lots of naps, many zoomies around the yard, following me everywhere throughout the house, and accepting every opportunity when someone offered a head rub or belly scratch.

I would usually bring her on a longer walk in the evening in order to get the last of her energy out before she went to bed. Walks are wonderful learning opportunities for a Future Leader Dog since there are many chances to practice commands such as “leave it” and “heel.”

All puppy raisers must attend a puppy meeting at least once a month, where the volunteer counselors check in with the raisers to answer questions, offer training assistance, and make sure the puppies are on track for being returned to guide school.

What We Taught Each Other

While I worked on teaching Sam the skills she would need to be successful in guide school, she was even more effective at teaching me.

I taught her basic obedience, and she gave me a lifetime of lessons in patience, the importance of routines, and unconditional love.

She never once backed down from a challenge. She never once showed signs of frustration. She never once gave up on learning.

The things that she never gave up on, I cannot say were true for me. Every day I felt like a failure. I wasn’t teaching her enough, or fast enough, or efficient enough. If she wouldn’t understand a command, I would internalize that I wasn’t a good teacher. If she wasn’t progressing as fast as I’d like, I thought that maybe I should just give her back to Leader Dog and let someone who was proficient in training dogs take over.

But she loved me. She followed me around like a shadow. No matter how poor of a teacher I was, she was always ready for more. (Whether it was because of me, or the endless supply of kibble I gave her as rewards for training done correctly, well…) And that gave me the much-needed confidence boost to keep going.

At the end of our year together, I have no doubt that 95% of all the learning was done at the human end of the leash.

Sam Goes to School

The most common question I got from family, friends, and strangers that I encountered while training Sam was, “How are you going to give her back? I could never give up a puppy.”

And to that, I will share the wisdom that I read when I was researching Leader Dogs for the Blind. Someone shared a quote that fit perfectly to my mission of raising Sam.

Someone else needs her more than I want her.

It was that simple. Sam was never mine for the long haul. She was gifted to me from Leader Dog, given on borrowed time with the expectation that I was going to give her back after a year.

From the beginning, I knew in my mind that Sam wasn’t mine. Plain and simple. She was born for a bigger mission in life. She was bred for more than me. She was bred to be a four-legged set of eyes for someone who needed her for their freedom and independence.

She had her place in my life, and I had my place in hers. It was a short while, but our time together was profoundly impactful.

However, I won’t say that her looming return date was met with happiness. I cried, knowing all too well that I was going to miss her. She had become a fixture in our home, and we all loved her.

Our day to return Sam was bittersweet. As we drove her back to the Leader Dog campus, she sat between my legs in the passenger seat. It was a hot July day, and as she always does in the summer heat, she kept her nose as close to the A/C vent as possible. I rubbed her head and soft ears the whole way there.

To her, it was just another fun car ride. To me, it was one last moment with her.

We took pictures with Sam outside the Leader Dog building. The same place where I picked her up a year ago. She didn’t poop this time, by now she was a well-behaved young dog with decent manners.

And as we said our final goodbye to her and handed the leash to the Leader Dog representative, she followed him with her tail wagging and didn’t look back.

It made me happy. She wasn’t anxious. She didn’t shy away from her new home. She went willingly, with her head held high, unaware of her next adventure but also not afraid of what was to come.

Conclusion

Leader Dogs for the Blind changed my life. I had no idea what I was getting into when I volunteered to host a puppy, but I am so glad I took a leap of faith. It was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.

I will be forever grateful that I had the opportunity to be part of an organization that provides life-changing services to people in need.

And will I raise another puppy for Leader Dog in the future? I would absolutely love to! I hope someday I am once again able to welcome a little ball of fluff into my home. I may only have them for a short while, but I know without a doubt they would make a lifetime impact on me.