SO

I don't know any other way to say it. Janda's been cc'd. Not that I haven't seen this coming, but it still doesn't make it any easier. According to my leaders, it has to do with her distraction problems. She was doing so well on food reward that I guess when they started taking her off of it, they weren't seeing the progress they expected for an almost 1-year-old puppy. Right now I'm still waiting to hear what the family is planning on doing about placement. This is their first career change, and they've always said they would keep Janda, but now they're facing the concept of having her AND trying to raise another pupster. I would take her in a heartbeat, but I'm afraid my parents aren't so down with that.

I'm really disappointed. I thought she had great potential all along. I know I shouldn't cry this hard for a dog that wasn't technically "mine" but at first I could really see her as a breeder, and then she got spayed, and then I kept saying someone would be SO lucky to have her as their guide. Now this. I guess she'd be a great therapy dog. She was always great with kids. I dunno. I really don't. At this point I have to just pick myself up and move on with the week. It kind of works out because she wasn't going to be able to come to school with me this quarter anyway. But it also means her family will have to postpone getting a new puppy until May at earliest....so they will either adopt Janda and then they will have to wait to raise again until she's more mature, or if they let GDB place her, they still have to wait till May because that's when their work schedules open up. Ugh.

Those of you who've gone through career changes for things you feel like "if only I'd worked harder on that problem" how do you deal with it? I feel so guilty because I'm sure I could have worked harder on getting her to ignore distractions. I guess part of it's just personality and you have to accept that, but I know part of it is training. And I suppose no one is really "at fault" but what if?

On a brighter note, today is Vortex's birthday! Happy birthday big 2-year-old!

And a friend of mine who's a photographer took some pictures with Janda and I on Monday (since I'm on spring break) so here's the album. Please vote for your favorite, we're going to send one of them into the calendar.