WEBVTT

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(light music)

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Welcome to Hadley Presents.

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I'm your host, Ricky Enger, inviting you to sit back,

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relax, and enjoy a conversation with the experts.

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In this episode, we discuss the process of raising a puppy

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to become a guide dog.

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And our guest is Hadley learning expert

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and first time puppy raiser, Jessica Smith,

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welcome to the show Jessica.

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Thank you for having me, Ricky.

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I am so glad that you could join me.

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Today, we get to talk about one of the coolest things ever.

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Before we do that, though,

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we should probably learn a little about

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who you are and what you do.

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I'm a learning expert on the Braille Team at Hadley.

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I've been here a little over a year.

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I've worked on our Braille Team

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to develop our new Braille workshops,

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and I get to work with our learners

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and answer their questions about braille.

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So today we're going to, like I said,

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talk about one of the coolest things ever.

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You know, puppies are so awesome, wonderful creatures.

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And the only thing better than having a puppy

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is getting to talk about a puppy.

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We're going to specifically talk about, you know,

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what it is like to be a puppy raiser

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with respect to having a puppy who is eventually destined

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to become a guide dog.

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So you are actually a first time puppy raiser,

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and I'm curious, how did you become involved in this?

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How did you even know that this was something

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that people could do?

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And then what made you to decide that it was something

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that you wanted to try?

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So I've worked in the field of blindness

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and low vision for about four or five years now.

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And originally when I started volunteering

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to work with people with visual impairments,

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I volunteered as a guide for kayakers.

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And one of the kayakers that I met had a guide dog,

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and then I met several guide dogs

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and who doesn't like being around dogs,

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so I really enjoy just taking them for a walk

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or I would ask to take them for a run.

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Unfortunately, you don't really run

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with your guide dog often, so I didn't get to do that.

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But just I enjoyed being around a dog

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with a really mellow temperament.

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I hadn't been around Labs before

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and I really had a busy life going

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to graduate school and working full time.

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So I didn't have time for a dog myself.

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After I graduated and I started working at Hadley,

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I actually work from a distance.

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So I work out of a home office

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and I wanted to volunteer and have a guide dog.

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Someone said, oh, that would be perfect for you right now

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because you're working from home.

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So he's like my office partner, he's my coworker.

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So I looked on Southeastern Guide Dog's website.

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They had a How can I help button?

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And I signed up to be a puppy raiser

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and you can sign up to be a puppy raiser

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or you can sign up to just babysit puppies.

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They have clubs all throughout the southeast,

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so all the way to Texas, Georgia, Florida, Alabama.

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I looked up a club in my area, they had one in the city

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that I live in, and I was able to sign up

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and start going to the puppy meetings

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to see what it would take to be a puppy raiser.

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I qualified to do it and they like a diverse selection

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of people from college students to families.

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I had someone come to my home

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and kind of check out things, make sure it was safe

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for a puppy to be here.

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And then I got on a list

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and within a few weeks I had a puppy.

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That is so cool.

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And shout out to Southeastern

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because I too have worked with Southeastern.

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I actually, my retired guide is from Southeastern,

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so love that school.

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I know that

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with the pandemic things are a little different

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than they normally might be, but in general,

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how long do you as a puppy raiser get to work with the dog

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before it goes off to additional training at the school?

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Typically it's a year.

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So you usually have the dog for a year

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and then he will have a date

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or she will have a date to go back to the school

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for more training with an actual dog trainer.

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You mentioned that, you know, when the dog goes

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to the school, they will be working with a dog trainer.

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So doing some of the things that get them prepared

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for doing actual guide work.

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I know that this is a question

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that comes up often when I talk with people

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and they're curious about

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how the whole guide dog thing works.

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You know, there are things that a puppy learns as a puppy

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and things that a puppy will learn later

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in order to be a guide.

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So I'm curious what things you

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as a raiser do you know, as far as teaching the dog

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or providing them with certain things in their environment

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beyond just the things that you would normally do

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for a puppy, you know, feed them and love them

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and brush them and take care of them and all that.

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So a lot at first, when I first got the guide dog puppy,

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his name is Mitchell, it was a lot of house manners,

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so house training, potty training him to go outside

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and they have a list of commands that you work with them

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and teach them in the first few weeks

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that you have the puppy, they put you

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through puppy kindergarten with the dog,

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and you're usually in a group with several other puppies

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and their puppy raisers and you learn basic skills.

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And currently Southeastern Guide Dogs uses a paw pad

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for training and it kind of helps with placement

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of the dog next to you and you teach them

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sit and down and stay

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and also stand while they're in puppy training.

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I believe it can get more commands throughout that.

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And then once you get those down,

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depending on how quickly the dog's picking it up,

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and of course it's my first time,

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so some of the things I was nervous about teaching Mitchell

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at first, but they really help.

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They have coordinators in the area

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and then you can always reach out

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and to other coordinators if you're having difficulty

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learning a certain skill.

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But most of it's house manners is really what we focus on.

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So not getting on furniture, not.