On Sunday, April 6th, I left home on a bittersweet journey to return Paxton to Guiding Eyes for the Blind.   There he will continue his path to become a Guide Dog.  It's still a long road ahead before he may be matched with a blind or visually impaired partner.  Back at Guiding Eyes for the Blind's training school, he will have:

• An In-For-Training (IFT) test that will determine his entrance to "doggie college" (a.k.a. Guide Dog School) happens on Tuesday morning (April 8th).  I'll post a comment on this blog as soon as I know how he did!
• If he passes this exam, he will be given a complete physical.
• Barring any health problems that might sideline him, he will be assigned a trainer and begin his guide dog training.
• That training will continue for at least 5 months, and although continuous, can be logically thought of as comprised of 4 phases.
• Once that training is complete, he is matched with a partner and they will complete training together, generally a 26-day resident program at the GEB training school.

Each of these stages requires successful completion of the previous one and only about 60% of the dogs make it all the way through.  I will keep you posted via later entries in this blog (*tease* the ones about Paxton's successor) as to his progress.

To celebrate this transition, I've put together a retrospective of his time with me us.  Enjoy!  And thank you all for your help and support!!

The song "My Buddy" is used with permission from Murray Weinstock's Dog Music
© 2000 Murray Weinstock, Furry Murray Music (ASCAP)

The title *"Sweet Sorrow" was taken from the title of an "Almost Daily eMo" that speaks so well to the cost of love.

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