Sophie the labrador

February 20, 2011 - 9:42 PM by Jessica

We just spent the weekend with Sophie, a labrador — and her family, my sister, brother-in-law and two of their kids. Sophie is their foster dog — their ninth — as she’s being trained to become a guide dog for The Israel Guide Dog Center for the Blind. The temporary part works for them because they head to the States each summer, and never liked the idea of putting a dog in a kennel for two to three months, but, yet, wanted a dog.

So, many years ago, nine as I mentioned, they got in touch with the Israel Guide Dog Center (which Rachel also wrote about last summer) and got their first of many dogs. There was Becky, Sheila, Whiskey and a bunch of others who didn’t make as much of an impression on me. Then again, I didn’t have two-year-old twins at the time, and didn’t completely realize how great it is to watch a toddler be completely comfortable with a fairly large dog who just sits or stands there while the two small people pet her, sometimes a little too roughly, pull her tail and then slobbers all over them in return.

One of the reasons Sophie the lab is so gentle is her pre-training at my sister and brother-in-law’s house. She is one of about 30 dogs born to a pure-bred litter that is about twice that size, and has passed the pre-training for becoming a guide dog. She first spends a year at an adoptive family and then goes through a three-week evaluation back at the center. If she passes, she’ll go through five to six months of training, and then a ‘shidduch’ or pairing, will be made with a blind person. They’ll live together at the center for three weeks, and then there’s another month of training at the blind person’s residence.

If the dog doesn’t pass, the first choice is to place her in a family with a blind child, so that the child can get used to having a dog around and eventually have a seeing eye dog. If that doesn’t work out, the foster family gets first crack at adopting their dog for good.

For my sister’s family, the experience has been wonderful, and in many ways even better for having fostered so many dogs, and not just one, beloved mutt. Their kids have grown up with dogs, gotten used to different personalities in dogs, and while it is somewhat sad to have to give ‘your dog up’ each spring, they’ve successfully convinced their parents to foster a new dog nearly every year since.

As for my boys, I was mightily tempted to consider fostering, given how cute they were with Sophie, and vice versa. I’m not quite ready, given the puppy-like behavior of toddlers. But it’s good to know we are welcome to visit the center — as is anyone — and they are also always looking for volunteers of all kinds. Moreover, says my brother-in-law who now serves on the center’s board, more Israelis are now aware of puppies in training and new laws have been passed that don’t require these dogs to wear muzzles in most public places….but they still don’t allow them into museums.

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