Synchronicity or angels? Whatever it was, our finding Kruiser was a set of amazing coincidences.
A couple of days after getting home from England, I went online and googled assistance puppies & autism & Denver. I found a couple of organizations, one located in Colorado Springs and another in Aurora. Either they didn't specialize in dogs for kids with autism or the training classes were too far away. In addition, at least one of the websites said that puppy raisers had to agree to never let the puppy off leash in unenclosed areas. Because of our cabin that would be almost impossible for us: Cross-country skiing with a dog on leash? Keeping the puppy on leash while Pat romped in the creek? I was discouraged.
That afternoon I drove to Echter's, a local garden store, to buy heirloom tomato plants for our community garden plot in the historic park. I had just finished talking with an employee when I saw a woman holding a yellow lab puppy in a purple vest. I immediately wheeled my cart up to her and asked if the dog was a service dog in training. She said yes, and I launched into how I had read an article while in England about service dogs and kids with autism and that I really wanted to become a puppy raiser for one. She almost started sputtering. "That's what this puppy is being trained for. And she needs a raiser." My first question to her was whether it mattered if we had a dog at home who wasn't very well-trained. She said the trainer, Deborah, was due any minute and we could ask her
and she was bringing the other puppy (a male) that needed a raiser as well.
Deborah showed up and I introduced myself and without taking a breath launched into my questions. No, it didn't matter that Pat wasn't well trained. We would just need to keep on top of the puppy and she could even help us some with Pat. And we could let the puppy off leash at our cabin as soon as he/she could come reliably when called. Deborah said the female puppy was a pistol and the male was laid back, but I had first seen the female and she was
very cute, so I was favoring her. About this time we were all shaking our heads at the coincidence of bumping into each other. I gave Deborah our home phone number and said I'd have to talk with my husband about it, that he knew I wanted to do this, but not that I'd be bringing a puppy home right away. I was late for an appointment, so I ran off without thinking to get Deborah's phone number.
As soon as I got home, I asked Ed. He said, "Well, why didn't you bring the puppy home with you?" I should have known. We decided that between our townhouse and our experience with more hyper female dogs that we'd ask to take the male dog. So we waited for a call from Deborah. She didn't call the first night. I figured it was because I said I needed to talk with Ed. She didn't call the next night. When we still hadn't heard from her the third day, I started to worry that she might have lost our phone number and called several vets and trainers and even stopped by Echter's to see if anyone knew of Deborah or a way to get in touch with her. No luck. A couple of more days passed and we were starting to think our high hopes were for naught. Then on the day of our son's graduation party from college, we got home from the park and the phone light was flashing. It was a message from Deborah!
Deborah came by our house a couple of evenings later with the 11-week-old male puppy named Kruiser (see above picture) to check out our place and to talk with us. We were afraid Deborah might not like that it we lived in a townhouse or that Pat's over-enthusiastic greeting might put her off. Nope. She was interested, as were we, and we agreed to take Kruiser after our son Matt and daughter-in-law Liyun left for Taiwan the next Tuesday.