Week 46 - Reunited with Maya

Maya, my German Shepherd, is now nearing the end of her advanced training. This is the time when the trainers invite the puppy walkers to visit their dog, and see it working in harness, and the chance to say that final farewell to the dog. I recently got my invitation to go to see Maya working. The day soon arrived and I was very excited at the prospect of meeting my little beauty again, my camera was the first thing in my bag, also a small album, containing photographs of Maya, from the day I got her up to the day she left me. A German Shepherds ears are floppy when they are very young, and as time passes, the carriage of their ears change almost daily, and at one point they can have one ear fully erect and the other still floppy, they look so comical, so I captured in photographs Maya's 'silly' ears at each different stage. This album is for her new Guide Dog owner, as I do this with each dog that I have puppy walked.
We set off on our journey to Liverpool which took about forty minutes. We arrived at the district office, where we met Maya's trainer, who took us into a large office, where there were several dogs scattered around, all lying down being very well behaved, but not a sign of Maya. She was safely hidden away in her trainer’s car. Joanne then went to fetch her and attached her harness, and went to do some work with her, and we followed them at a safe distance so Maya could not see us. Maya looked so handsome in her harness, they use a brown harness for training, and only get the nice white harness when they qualify, and become a fully trained Guide Dog. When we arrived back in the grounds of the district office, Maya's harness was taken off, and that is when we were allowed to meet up with her. It only took a few seconds for her to recognise us when we walked over to her, then she went crazy, singing at top doh, as German Shepherds can be rather vocal, and jumping up at us, which is something that Maya never did, but this day she was just overawed with excitement at seeing us. After we had a while saying hello to her, we then went back into the office, as a member of staff had very kindly looked after Quella for me, then we put Maya in the same room to meet Quella, and I think they remembered each other, as they both got very excited, they had spent three months together with me, before Maya went in for training. Maya has been matched to a young lady, and they will now start 'class'. Class is where the dog and new Guide Dog owner start working together as a team, they will do this for approximately two or three weeks, and on some occasions maybe a little longer. This is where the dog will also learn certain routes that the Guide Dog owner uses. When the trainer is satisfied that the two are working really well together, they will then do a 'qualifying walk' where the trainer will follow a route, at a distance out of sight, with her supervisor, and if that goes really well she will say to the Guide Dog owner, ''congratulations you have qualified''. Then Maya will be a working Guide Dog. Now I have got my fingers crossed that all goes well, and they do qualify as a working partnership.