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Wednesday Chats: Pet Loss, Feral Cats, Cat Health, Multi-Pet, and more!

Posted by askmrseamus on December 13, 2002 at 09:42:10:

Braille (spayed dark brindle boxer) has been blind since birth. She will be 20 months here at the end of this month and still growing too.

I adopted her at 4 months old. We started off attending puppy classes, then basic obedience, to advanced classes. I also exposed her to many community experiences, traffic, crowds and other public places.

To keep her thinking a head, we also do alot of tracking activities.

Nothing has stopped her from living a normal life and she adapts quickly to new environments and is very confident and trusting of me and others.

She was highly trainable. I even taught her to fetch and retrieve balls and other items. I found this to be a good way to reinforce her basic obedience skills.

Last January, I started working her in a therapy dog training program. She had a rather unique roles in helping clients rehab with the Physical Theraprist. PT would help clients to either kick or throw the ball for Braille and Braille's job was to sit, wait and be ready to fetch. Using her sense of smell, touching and hearing, off Braille and I would go to find the ball. We'd bring it back to the client and Braille would either drop it at their feet or rest it in their lap, ready to do it all over again.

Clients soon came to realize that they to were not just working out, but playing with a dog, which made it be that much more fun.

In June, Braille became a registered therapy dog with TD,INC. We average 3 to 4 hours a week volunteering. Braille because she is young, has all that puppy energy to play/work.

She also does photo shoots for a national shoe company, Eastland Shoe here in Maine.

In August of this year Braille went back to school for two months and in October was awarded the AKC Canine Good Citizen Award. She also volunteers at the local children's museum once a month.

In September of this year her story was featured in the new Dog Fancy publication called Boxer's Vol II. Braille was selected as one of six boxers in the USA with an extraordinary job with the work she does above and more.

Braille was dumped to a shelter at 4 weeks old in Texas, made her way into Second Chance Boxer Rescue, them found her forever home here with me.

She truly is an inspiration to many and bring hope to those who can see. If Braille could speak, she would say - no one should ever be left in the dark.

To read more about Braille and see her pictures, please go to our website below.

Enjoy,

Janice, Bubba, Mr. Seamus and Braille
http://www.askmrseamus.com

Follow Ups:

• Re: Meet Braille PHRottn 12/18/02 (0)
• Re: Meet Braille PHFaust 12/18/02 (0)