As I type this, we’re waiting for our flight home after a good but long week traveling. Caleb’s fast asleep at my feet, having grown very used to the San Francisco International Airport, and I have no worries about traveling with him. In fact, I’ve got no concerns about his ability to become a guide dog if that’s his chosen path.

Recently, I re-read each of the blogs I’ve written for this series. What I found most interesting was how the tone evolved. In the beginning, I saw these as progress reports but as the year progressed and we came to know Caleb, the story has become much more personal. Caleb’s personality and our relationship with him has shaped this series to be a lot more than progress reports. He’s part of our family; we love him and it will be hard to see him leave us. So far, he does not have an official recall date to formal training, but it’s looming like a great big rain cloud. How quickly a year has come and gone but, at least, we’ll be spending the holidays with Caleb!

I am a big fan of the holidays, and we’ve already had quite a few highlights this year. The biggest so far was our participation in the Guide Dogs for the Blind Festive Holiday Luncheon in San Francisco. In its 35th year, it’s a pretty big event, drawing approximately 700 attendees. To me, it marked the official start of the holiday season, and this year, Caleb and I were part of the program.

I had the honor of speaking on behalf of the puppy-raising community and sharing some puppy-raising wisdom with the attendees. I brought along a crew of friends and family to support me, and Caleb, as always, was my trusty sidekick on stage. I am not an experienced public speaker, so the prospect of all those faces staring at me was a little daunting. I focused on two goals: not crying and making the audience laugh. I did both, so we’ll count it as a success.

Here’s a snippet from my speech:

In one year, we accomplished a lot. Caleb has grown from a chunky 16-pound puppy to handsome 62-pound dog. He’s learned how to walk on a leash, potty on command, maintain good manners, keep calm under pressure and, most importantly, to trust me.

We’ve traveled on planes, BART, buses and boats. We’ve visited California, Montana, Washington and Idaho, stayed in downtown hotels and fishing lodges. We’ve gone to plays, movies, meetings and appointments, stores, offices and black tie events—all of which prepare Caleb for life as a working guide dog. At home, we play games of tug, go hiking, practice our obedience commands, take naps and enjoy endless belly rubs—all of which prepare Caleb for being the best companion.

We happened to run into the breeder custodians of Caleb’s mom while there, they were so proud to see one of their grand-pups on stage. He has become a great ambassador for the organization and its mission. All in all, it was a wonderful day and just one more opportunity to test Caleb’s socialization and obedience skills among all those people—not to mention the puppies!

Caleb is really ready for his next adventure. I cannot think of a situation or distraction that he cannot handle. I am excited and sad as we prepare for his next career move and our next puppy. In the meantime, we’ll just curl up in front of the fireplace and relax this holiday season.

This is my favorite time of year; I love the changing of the season and how it changes our activities. The temperature drops, the leaves change colors and soup becomes a staple on the dinner table. The one negative I can find is the shorter day. It’s an adjustment for all of us. We go from weekends spent on the water to weekends hiking the amazing central Oregon wilderness, and as always Caleb partakes in the fun. While he gets plenty of exposure to the public and new experiences we try to balance all of this with fun activities. These not only build trust but make working more fun and rewarding.

With no shortage of places to explore, we’ve been spending a lot of time up in the mountains taking advantage of the less crowded trails before the snowpack arrives. Caleb clearly enjoys the change of pace and scenery. Some of the toughest challenges we face on our hikes are off-leash dogs. I will be the first to admit Noah, our pet dog never walked on a leash. He was trained to respond to verbal commands and could be counted on to listen no matter the circumstance. However, when we were approaching or approached by any dog we’d but him on a leash for the safety of everyone.

It’s a bit different with Caleb; he’s not allowed off leash in areas that are not fenced and more often than not we can count on an off-leash dog encounter no matter where we go. These provide us with two different challenges. The first being a good distraction exercise for Caleb to work through. Ignoring an off-leash dog can be tough even for the most reliable dog, so we work some training into our fun hikes.

The second and more concerning for all of us is the unknown and in some cases aggressive off-leash dogs. This can be particularly detrimental to a Guide Dog puppy and end a working career before it even starts. One negative experience can cause unrecoverable damage that stresses out a dog enough that he cannot regain the focus to work successfully. Dog attacks are the number one reason for early or sudden retirement of working Guide Dogs. Luckily, I can simply pick up Caleb and move away from any off-leash dog approaching us in a dominant or aggressive posture. Caleb still thinks he’s a lap dog and doesn’t mind a little pick-me-up now and again. As long as our adventure continues he’s a happy.

Playing and being a family member are just as important in Caleb’s training as socialization and public outings. At home, just like any pet dog, Caleb enjoys playing with toys, napping on any number of beds around the house and following our every move. He sleeps in our room and loves racing around the backyard with a toy in his mouth. It’s not all work for this Guide Dog puppy; we make sure to have plenty of fun. One of my favorite games to play with Caleb is tug. He loves it and when he does he gets quite animated and makes the strangest noises. We call him the Wookie because he sounds exactly like Chewbacca from Star Wars. It is one of the most hilarious traits about Caleb, and I hope his future partner finds it as funny as we do.

More and more we are preparing ourselves for Caleb’s recall. This week marked his final evaluation by our community field representative from Guide Dogs for the Blind. We spent time reviewing Caleb’s monthly reports and discussing all of the different things we’ve exposed him to. He’s right where he should be in training. His obedience is spot on, he’s been exposed to all sorts of people, places and things, all of which he takes in stride. He’s confident but cautious, at the end of the meeting it was determined Caleb’s got a few more months with us before his recall. Since he’s a little immature we’ll get to keep him for a bit longer than the average pup. Finally, I found the silver lining of those Golden Retriever genes, and am thankful for some extra time with this little pup of whom I’ve grown so fond.

Next month, Caleb and I will have the honor of speaking at the Guide Dogs for the Blind Festive Holiday Luncheon in San Francisco, stay tuned.

Guide dogs have a special and important job. Not only do they help people with their day-to-day tasks, these working dogs give their people the gift of independence.

As a fellow runner, I was inspired by the story of Sami Stoner, the first high school athlete in Ohio to compete with a guide dog.

Sami began running on her school's cross-country team in eighth grade, but by the end of that year, she was diagnosed with Stargardt disease, which left her legally blind.

In order for Sami to run on the junior varsity cross-country team, one of her friends, Hannah Ticoras, initially ran alongside her in races. But
after Hannah graduated, Sami was worried that she wouldn't be able to compete. All that changed when a special guide dog entered her life.

Now, Chloe the Golden Retriever has picked up where Hannah left off and Sami continues to run in competitions with Chloe by her side. The guide dog watches out for roots and finds the clearest path for Sami to run.

For Sami, running with Chloe isn't about winning. In fact, she isn't allowed to place at track meets. For her, it's about being able to do something she loves and showing that having a disability isn't the end of the world. And for that, Sami is thankful for her loyal guide dog, Chloe.

When 9-year-old Alison Ainsworth, who is autistic, and her service dog Levi were kicked out of an Edmonton Winners store the first time, the store responded with a $25 gift card. Asking her to leave because of her dog was against company policy. When the girl and her dog returned to the store months later to use that gift card, they were again told to get out.

This time, the store’s response was much bigger. Executives of the retail chain apologized and promised to educate each employee about the company policy, which is to allow service dogs into all of their stores. They also offered to donate $10,000 to a charity of Ainsworth’s choosing. Appropriately enough, the money will go towards training a service dog for another autistic child in Alberta.

The Ainsworths will not pursue a human rights complaint against the company as originally planned and hope that the incident and associated publicity will be beneficial in affecting attitudes about service dogs in the community.