Puppies coming!

Last week, Dempsey went to the Helping Paws open house to help introduce people to the Helping Paws program. Along with Angel and Hudson, Dempsey represented the "Working Wonders" class.

I thought he was a wonderful ambassador, shaking hands with everyone and kissing babies. With his people skills and good looks, Dempsey might have a future in politics.

The open house was an important event because Helping Paws has some new puppies on the way! Both Cheers (Dempsey's mom) and Faith have puppies coming, probably within a day or two of each other, no less. All these puppies will need foster homes, and the open house was geared towards educating prospective foster homes about the Helping Paws program.

Last year's open house was where Doreen suckered persuaded me to volunteer. I didn't think I had the time or the patience to train a service dog, but Doreen insisted we go to the open house, "just for research." My research, unfortunately, consisted mainly of getting kisses and snuggles from the puppies, and falling completely and hopelessly in love. The rest, as they say, is history.

Having said that, training Dempsey has been by far the most rewarding thing either of us have ever done. I'd seen service dogs in public, but I never imagined I could actually train one myself. And now that we've met a few people who have received Helping Paws dogs, we know that a service dog will touch people's lives in ways that we never imagined possible.

If you live in the Minneapolis/St Paul area, love dogs, and are willing to take the time to learn some new skills, I highly recommend you try the Kool Aid. I can promise that if you work hard at it, fostering and training a service dog will be one of your proudest accomplishments.

You can start your own research about the Helping Paws training program here, or feel free to drop us a line!