First encounter

When a guide dog turns seven, latest eight years of age, it is high time to stat looking for a successor.

When quito had turned seven, I met with a guide dog trainer. I called him and told him I chose him because I knew he had trained Hovawartsbefore, and wanted another one. He was more than skeptical, and asked me why among all dogs I wanted a Hovawart. I told him my two guides were Hovies, I had no major issues with them and liked them. But only when I mentioned his friend ans Quito’s coach and Quito, he softened up and said he had seen Quito before. We met in Berlin on a nice late summer day, spent an hour talking about his training methods and attitudes, and I told him I wanted a dog from his school, but if possible no Labrador.

He didn’t get back to me about a dog, but a colleague of mine did and said she had an idea. Another colleague had takin in a puppy whose host family could no longer take care of her. The two, lady and dog, didn’t quite click, and it might be good for the little golden girl to get out of that family.

So finally on a grim, rainy November day I met Emma, just over a year old. I met a lively, interested and impatient golden retriever. My colleague told me she was impatient and started barking the moment she couldn’t get what she wanted. I had a key moment with her. She wanted to play with me, had a bark in her throat to come out, and in that moment I turned my back on her. So she stood quietly and stopped barking.

I immediately told my friend I liked her and wanted the guide dog trainer to assess her, I thought something could be done to redirect her energy.

The trainer came, took her with him, and some three days later I called him.

“If it weren’t for you”, he said, “and if I didn’t know you managed to deal with Hovawarts, I would drop this dog here and now. She has destroyed all my dog baskets and dog blankets!”

We spent some time trying to figure out why that happened, didn’t really come to a conclusion, but he said he was working together with a colleague, who can spend much more time with the dog. I agreed and told him that maybe Emma was a women’s dog.

“If she sees hope, we will work with her.”

 

 

Liebe Grüße  |  Best regards

Chris Kaplan

 

Turbo speed update

Hi everybody, Chris writing.

 

Long time, no writing/seeing/hearing/reading, but you know that we’re alive and kicking.

Much has changed over the past four years.

Micki has moved places, Mr Sun and I have started playing blind tennis, and Quito quickly learnt to tell the difference between ours and her tennis balls.

She got tired of work, so two years ago it was time to retire her. She went to live with the great Ramona and her friend Max, the little yellow lively fellow, where she could guard property, protect it from monstrous cats, dig holes to her heart’s content, take baths in what was thought to be the birds’ drinking and bathing basin, sleep and play, go in and out as she liked.

I will not forget when Ramona picked her up, she carried Quito’s bed to her car, and quito yelled after Ramona to wait for her.

Retiring her was much easier than retiring Hapoo, because I knew Quito was healthy enough to have a few more happy years ahead of her.Quito and I followed slowly. However, the apartment was quite empty then, and silent.

There was not much time to look back, as I had boxes to pack, and I had the trip to the doctor’s office to be completed with cane only – quite a challenge, but I was proudly successful. Yet another occasion to show me that travelling with a dog is much smoother and faster.

Boxes and boxes and more boxes filled our apartment, and where Quito’s bed used to be there was space to put even more. We were preparing for the big move. Quito had been there twice, and guided us there the next time around, when we had things to do there. However, I did not want to put her through the stress of having to adapt to a new apartment, new resting spots and new routes, so the time to retire her was perfect.

The move to the new apartment was done fairly smoothly, except that the company had too few people to do it all in one day, so half a week later they returned to do the rest of furniture assembling. Dining furniture had arrived, which we had chosen in summer with Dirk and Anna, friends we had found through Quito and tennis. With Micky I had bought some great lounge furniture for the dining room, which also arrived. And finally, the kitchen moved in. The shop owner had taken his time to show me everything. I was impressed by his work and ideas, and he was impressed by my ability to visualize, my knowledge of kitchen planning and my allover contribution. I thought of good lighting, wanted the wall cabinets to have doors that opened in a particular way, and he chose kitchen appliances that I would be able to operate. And now, after the kitchen had moved in, we had a wonderful, modern kitchen.

Micky showed us elementary routes to bakery, supermarket and light train, and then we were left on our own, with more boxes to unpack, but a good foundation laid beneath our feet to start walking.