Puppy Raising as Therapy

Sept. 28, 2008

A cool story from a woman in my yoga class (where Kruiser is now a regular and adding to the mellow vibes of the class by sleeping through it or watching non-plussed as people contort their bodies in interesting ways)--

A friend of hers adopted a girl many years ago, and when the girl reached 15 she wanted to find her birth mom. The adopted mom supported her in her search and they located the birth mom in Florida. By then the girl was 16 and planned a trip to Florida to meet her face-to-face. At the last minute, the girl backed out, too afraid to carry through with her plans.

The adopted mom wanted to find some way to help the girl understand her biological mom and came up with the idea to become a puppy raiser for an assistance dog. They did this. The puppy grew up and they gave it to the training organization for its final training, the girl seeing how you can love someone but still give them up for all sorts of good reasons. Lesson learned.

There's a nice postscript to the story, too. In the end, the puppy, now dog, failed as an assistance dog and the adopted girl and her family got to keep it.