SPRINGFIELD, Ore. (KMTR) – A special delivery was made Saturday for local volunteers who are helping train the next generation of guide dogs for the blind.
The non-profit group called Guide Dogs for the Blind, brought its puppy truck into Springfield on Saturday, December 8, dropping off four 8-week-old golden retriever puppies.
Each one of the dogs goes to a foster family that will raise them for the next two years. At the end of that time, the puppies go to Boring, Oregon, near Portland, where they'll be paired up with new owners who need the pups to help with day-to-day tasks for the visually impaired.
“[It's] like your own little child that you've got 14 or 15 months to raise and do the best you can,” says Leona Sparks, a longtime guide dog trainer from Crabtree, Oregon.
“It's just you're attached to the people in the program, the puppies, the working guides, the working partners. It's just a huge family,” says Sparks.
“It's extremely rewarding, we've got people who've done that about fourteen and fifteen times,” says Pat Cook with the Guide Dogs for the Blind program.
The program is always looking for more volunteers to help train future guide dogs. If you're interested, visit the group's website at: http://www.guidedogs.com/site/PageServer.
