Because she's PSYCHO!

Awhile back, I got an email from my best friend Janelle about how she was seriously considering retiring Adele, her Seeing Eye dog, whom she's had only three years. She was still conversing with people at The Seeing Eye about it, and hadn't made a final decision yet. I asked why she was thinking of retiring Adele so soon.

The email I got back was succinct. "Because she's psycho!" Janelle went on to explain that Adele's had some problems ever since another dog guide went bonkers and attacked her at a public event, has grown to loathe cats with a passion, barks at anything that walks by the front door, is still a little skittish about traffic at times, and develops irrational fears (like being afraid of Janelle's scanner for a week).

Several weeks later, I got another email from her, with the subject line, "Well, I did it." When she had nearly half a dozen people at The Seeing Eye concur that it was time to retire Adele, and a fast approval for her application for a new dog, she made decided to go ahead and retire her. She was just waiting to hear which class she'd be in, and turned her efforts to finding a home for Adele if she could, rather than return her to TSE and have her adopted out that way.

Janelle emailed on Monday that she'd found a home for Adele. Adele will work through today, and will go to work with Janelle's hubby tomorrow (he's a manager for PetCo), get a bath, and be picked up there by her new owners. Janelle flies out on Saturday to TSE for her training class with her new dog.

Her brother, who's also blind and got a new dog last summer, and knowing she'd be a bit nervous about going and would miss her young boys while gone, sent her an email this morning, part of which said: "Try not to stress out too much. This could be a really nice vacation for you. I mean, you get a full-size bed all to yourself, an out-of-tune piano, and blind people to poke fun of. What could be better?" Encouraging, isn't he?

The cool thing is that Morristown, NJ, where TSE is located, is only about 3 hours from here. They have visiting hours on weekends when you can come see the students in the current class, and since it's a short enough trip, we're going to make a day of it, pile everybody in the car, and go see her and her new doggie.

I can hardly wait!