The Kerrs are raising a puppy to become a guide dog for the blind. They invest love, long hours and hard work before they have to give it back.
By BETH N. GRAY
Published March 21, 2004
[Times photo: Maurice Rivenbark]
Randy Kerr gathers firewood as 11 week-old Jeanne climbs in the trailer. He is helping train the Labrador retriever puppy to be a guide dog. He and his wife are socializing and conditioning Jeanne to learn commands. This is the second dog they have worked with.
LAKE LINDSEY - It's hard not to fall in love with an 8-week-old puppy, with silky baby hair, big brown eyes and an eager tail wag.
But if you have to keep her for a year-and-a-half, take her to the grocery store, restaurant, work, even on vacation, while you try to teach her as many as 40 commands, then that love will get tested.
Randy and Mary Ann Kerr, volunteer puppy raisers for Southeastern Guide Dogs Inc., have tasted that bond and they want more. Last month, the Kerrs brought home a double-handful of black velvet, a Labrador retriever puppy, the decidedly lovable Jeanne, (pronounced genie).
Nine months earlier, the couple had returned a black Lab, Levet, they had raised for over a year to Southeastern's campus at Palmetto. There, the young adult underwent intensive training, sort of a graduate-level curriculum, and was paired with a blind person.
"For years, I wanted to do this," said Mary Ann, 51. But rearing two daughters consumed the couple's time. The Kerrs also served as missionaries for various organizations in the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica and Russia for 10 years.
"We've always had dogs," she said, recalling a German shepherd, a Lab and a springer spaniel. "(But) it was never convenient to do this."
The basics of raising a guide puppy is "to keep her out of trouble and just love her and socialize her," said Randy, 52. "The whole concept for a guide dog is socialization."
Socializing means introducing the puppy to crowds, public venues, stairs, elevators, other animals and all kinds of noises.
The Kerrs have a photo of Jeanne's first encounter with a cow, a big-headed Hereford. From opposite sides of the fence, canine and bovine eyed each other inquisitively and warily.
In their first week together, Randy took Jeanne to a woodlot where he was felling trees. He thought it would be useful for her to hear a chain saw and crashing trees. But as a tree fell awkwardly, the saw kicked and badly cut Randy's knee. After fashioning a tourniquet, he picked up Jeanne's leash and she quietly walked 300 yards to the house with him.
"She was fine," he marveled.
In a week under the Kerrs' tutelage, Jeanne learned sit and leave it, the latter a command not to sniff or pick up something. She is mastering busy, busy, a command to do her business.
With a little prompting, Jeanne performed right about, a maneuver in which the dog circles from its guide position on a person's left around to the right. It's a move the dog needs to make when its handler enters a room and close the door.
"Some don't learn it till 9 months (of age)," Randy said. "You just never can tell."
Innate intelligence is a criteria for selecting breeding partners at Southeastern Guide Dogs, Palmetto, location. There the organization maintains a breeding colony of some 200 bitches and dogs, whose records go back at least eight generations.
"Our stock is pretty well known for intelligence, friendliness and the ability to learn," said projects coordinator Michelle Bass.
About 60 percent of Southeastern's dogs graduate to guide certification. The remaining 40 percent mostly go into law enforcement, servicing the disabled as companion dogs or pursuing careers as therapy dogs in nursing homes and assisted living facilities.
The Kerrs and other puppy raisers don't have to teach by the seat of their pants. Southeastern provides volunteers with a 3-inch thick notebook of instructions, aids and trouble-shooting information. Chapters include Arrival of the Puppy, The First Night, Home Manners, Approved Ties, Grooming and more.
"I wish I had that when our children were born," Randy said.
Jeanne's upcoming agenda is to learn no noise, stay, down, down stay, left, right, forward, under down, a command for the dog to go under a chair, in a restaurant, for instance, and lie down. And there are more instructions as a dog progresses with achievement and age.
Teaching Jeanne is "just like you would with a baby," said Mary Ann. The puppy learns through repetition and praise.
"They love to please," Randy said.
"You tell them one time and if they don't do it, you tell them "no-no-no" until they do the command," he continued. "You can't afford to get agitated."
The Kerrs ran into a problem late in their raising of the first dog, Levet.
"He started to show aggression, dominance," Randy said.
Bass acknowledged that temperament is the main qualification for graduation to guide dog.
Determined that Levet not wash out, the Kerrs called Southeastern for help.
What they heard was, "Catch the dog in the middle of the aggression and make him submit to you. Push him down to the ground," Randy said. With just two such sessions, Levet returned to obedience, he said.
Levet gave the Kerrs a particular thrill when they took her on a vacation to California. At the metal detector at the Dallas-Ft. Worth Airport, the official said the dog would have to be screened as well as the Kerrs. Randy walked through the portal first. He told Levet, "Sit, stay," and finally, Come."
"You don't have to take the dog on vacation," Randy pointed out. It can go into a kennel briefly or, as the Kerrs prefer, boarded with other puppy raisers. And failure to teach all 40 commands doesn't disqualify a volunteer family.
"Others maybe don't teach as much as we do," Randy said. But the Kerrs' devotion to the effort is more a vocation than an avocation.
"What they want is a loving home and getting (the puppy) out in public so in the future when they go out they won't be leery or frightened," Mary Ann said.
Public access has not been a problem for the Kerrs. When out and about, the dog wears a royal blue vest bearing the inscription, "Southeastern Guide Dog Puppy."
"When (business proprietors) see a puppy in training, they are happy, happy to let you in," Mary Ann said.
In fact, it was a group outing by some 30 puppy raisers and their charges visiting a Home Depot in Seminole where the Kerrs first encountered Southeastern Guide Dogs' program.
Puppy raisers - currently some 300 families throughout Florida - meet twice a month at various venues to share their experiences and to give the dogs an opportunity to interact. The local group includes volunteers from Pinellas, Pasco and Hernando counties. The Kerrs are hopeful, by getting out the word on the guide dog program, that enough puppy raisers will come forward so that they might organize a separate Hernando unit.
Puppy raisers receive no pay, but Southeastern pays veterinary expenses.
Southeastern's literature says it receives no government money but is financed by donations, fundraisers and sponsorships.
It costs $27,500 to graduate a guide dog into the hands of a blind recipient, who receives the dog free of charge, Bass said. The expense includes the cost of breeding, raising the pup for eight weeks before it is fostered out, veterinary care, spaying/neutering if necessary, four to six months of intensive training with professional instructors, 26 days of on-campus living for a blind master to learn how to work with and care for his guide dog, follow-up training and home visits.
During the intensive training back on campus, dogs are taught "intelligent disobedience," the refusal to obey any command that would put the blind master and dog in danger, according to the organization's fact sheets. Randy explained that a master may give the command, "forward" when he doesn't hear an oncoming car, but the dog does. The dog must learn to disobey and command his master.
Levet learned that and everything else required for graduation. He was paired with Bill Shearon of Bradenton Beach.
The Kerrs have seen Levet once since he went off to college and was paired Shearon. It was an emotional reunion.
"He went bonkers," Randy said. "But then he went and sat next to Bill and put his head on Bill's knee." Just as it was supposed to be.
"We cried and cried," Mary Ann said.
Yet she added, "When you pick the puppy up, you realize this is not yours. He'll leave one day. But you know there'll be another puppy around the corner."
"You know you're doing something good. We're going to help the blind," Randy said. "We were the ones being blessed. We received so much more."
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Information on becoming a puppy raiser for Southeastern Guide Dogs Inc. is available by calling 941-729-5665, FAX 941-729-6646, Internet www.guidedogs.org and e-mail at info@guidedogs.org Requests for presentations at schools or civic organization meetings may be forwarded to the same communication sites.
