From: Pete Donahue 
Subject: another piece in the puzzle of Tim's upbringing found
Fellow Federationists and friends,
This past weekend I discovered something about Tim my guide dog I whish I
had been told about by Seeing Eye when I graduated with him as it would
have reduced some of the challanges we had when we first came home.  I
seems that he had some crate training during his time with his puppy
raiser.  We were invited to spend a coupple of evenings with the family of
the person who repaired my computer this afternoon.  During the night I
put time in a crate in our bed room so he wouldn't soil the bed room
carpetting as I forgot to bring his bed chain with me.  Rather than resist
the idea of staying in the crate he dove in to it when I opened the door
of the crate.  This indicates to me that in addition to being kept in the
kennels at Seeing Eye during his guide dog traing period he was crated for
some of the time during his puppyhood, and even Seeing Eye told me that
that is not all bad if crate training is done in a humaine way i.e. the
dog is not placed in the crate for punishment, but that it is something
the dog expects to happtn at certain times of the day under certain
conditions if it is done at all.  This is just one more example of
graduates not being told information that may in certain situations help
to to make the relationship between dog and blind person a lot less
stressfull.  Had I have been told about this before I left Seeing Eye I
would probably have gotten a crate for him when we got home, and placing
him in it at night or a cdrtain times during the day when it was warrented
would have reduced the insidents of relieving in the house and would have
made it easier to deal with the distructive tendancies of some young dogs.
Yes, this is information I could have learned from his raiser but what eo
you do when you are denied the chance to meet the raisers and learn as
much as you want to know about that part of your dog's upbringing.  While
I am glad to see that we have come to an understanding with respectt to
Seeing Eye's participation in our National Conventions  we need to address
issues and concerns such as the issue Itraining issues such as issues and
issues and concdrns such as graduates and puppy raisers being given the
opportunity to communicate with each other freely and without
interferrance from the school.
I just wanted to share this latist discovery with you all in the hopes we
can deal with this situation during the coming National Convention to help
improve the level of training given to bvoth guide dogs, and the blind
persons that use them.  Take care.  Have a good evening and a great
weekend.
Yours truly,
Peter Donahue
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