Long Weekend

This weekend is Labor Day weekend and I am looking forward to having an extra day off! It will be good for Kaiya too. She will get three full days of attention :) I am hoping the potty training will be complete shortly and having a long weekend should help. We have only had a few accidents but it would be nice to fully trust her in that area. She is very good at going on command and that will be very important for her future.
I can tell she has already grown since we got her. She will be bigger than Lexus before we know it! I really need to take more pictures while she is in this stage of life. They grow up so fast!
I do have a prayer request. Today I got an email from the director of Blessing Unleashed. She had an accident on Tuesday and broke her arm/elbow in 6 places. She will have to have surgery on it. She has little kids, one who has autism. It sounds like it could be a long recovery and she will need our prayers.
Thanks! Kristin

First Post

I have decided to start a blog about our experience of training a service dog.

I became aware a few weeks ago of a Kentucky organization that needed puppy raisers for future services dogs. It is called Blessings Unleashed Foundation (BUF). You can learn more at http://www.blessingsunleashed.org/. The goal is that these dogs will one day be a companion for a child with Autism. We will train intensively with her and bring her where ever we go once she earns her service dog vest.

After talking with Todd, I contacted the director, Dana, for BUF and was surprised at how fast I was able to get a puppy. Within a week and a half Dana was driving to our house with our new 14 week old yellow lab puppy. Her name was originally Lexie but since we already had a dog named Lexus, we had to change her name. She is now named Kaiya (pronounced Ky-ya). We will have Kaiya in our home for the next 12-18 months.

After only being at our house for a little while, we had a Sunday school picnic to go to. We decided to bring Kaiya to meet everyone. She was a hit! All the kids loved her and they played all evening. She was so tired by the end of the night.

Kaiya is a great puppy and a fast learner. She gets along great with our dog Lexus.

I have already fallen in love with her and I know it will be very hard to say goodbye to her one day, but I am so happy to be in this part of her life. She is going to be with a great child someday who really needs her.