"Tanaka"

Our first exposure to Guide Dogs for the Blind was when the daughter of close family friends (and next door neighbors) raised a guide dog puppy.  We didn’t know much about the program, except what our friends told us.  There seemed to be a lot of silly rules, and we thought it was odd that they would allow their daughter to raise a dog that she would eventually have to give up (the daughter is so sensitive, she cried when her pet mice died).

They got Ferdinand in December of 1996. He was a great dog.  What I remember most about him is he always got in the trash and annoyed their hunting dog Max, but Ferdinand got to go into stores and restaurants.  There were a few times they called and asked us to go let the dog out, and visit with him, because he had been in the kennel too long.  We were more than happy to help out.

Ferdinand eventually had to go back to Guide Dogs for the Blind, and I remember it being very difficult for our friends.  But we all went on with our lives.  On June 20, 1998 we were invited to attend a ceremony at the Guide Dogs for the Blind campus.  Ferdinand was going to graduate!  We thought that sounded great, so we headed to the graduation.  What we had not anticipated was how very emotional that day would be, not a dry eye in the audience (and us without a box of tissues!).  It was one of our proudest moments watching our neighbor’s daughter present Ferdinand to his new owner.  At that moment we knew that someday we would raise a guide dog puppy for the blind.

In July of 2001, we got our first guide dog puppy named Tanaka, and hopefully, someday we will be proudly standing at the graduation ceremony handing over our puppy to its new owner.