Campus Tour...

No, not college just yet!  Still got a few years before that thank goodness!

My kids and I attended the campus tour for the Guide Dogs for the Blind today.

It's quite the trek for us out here in the boonies, but I thought it was worth it.  They have a great facility and very informative volunteers who took us around the campus.  There are dorms where the recipients stay while awaiting placement and training with their dogs.  They have veterinary services on site, kennels for the big guys and a puppy kennel for the little guys before they're placed with a family for pre-training training.

(You can apply to get a puppy, do the basic training and such, but you have to give it back when it's a year to 16 months. :( It would be a good experience for older kids who are wanting something for 4H or...  

We know someone who has had a few of them.  It's a big responsiblity, but also awesome knowing that you are doing something GREAT for someone else!)

Lots of great information!  I was a little bummed we didn't see any puppies.  :(  And we didn't get to see any training sessions, but we did meet Chester (the local cat used for distraction during training), a dog who is ready for placement, and another who is a "career change" dog.  His knees didn't pass the test for dysplasia so he gets to be a different kind of service dog...


These people are doing something really fabulous for the visually impaired and I'm glad we got to visit.  The tour is about an hour long.  The field trip was set up by Kim Railey at http://www.homeschoolingeventsandmore.com/.  It's free to tour, but $3 to Kim for the work she does in setting it all up.  Pretty cool.  (You need to be with a tour group in order to visit the facility.)

Tanner and Jack thought it was great.  They especially liked the information that this organization was started after WWII to help veterans who where blinded in the war!  Tanner is huge into WWII right now.

Sara, however, thought it was "booorring".  Probably because, like me, she would have liked to see more of the dogs and possibly a training session.  She kept asking me where all the dogs were.  (Although.... she's not a morning person either and I had to drag her out of bed early so we could drop Luke at my mom's and still get there in time.  So that could have been a factor also...)

Anyway, I have been wanting to sign up for field trips with other homeschoolers so I did.  No friend connections were made today, but it was nice to see other homeschoolers out and about anyway!   :)


Rondi