A step

 K hankers for a pet. They come up as regular discussions in our household. The girls are of course gung ho about a pet - any pet. But my stance is clear, the only permissible pet was a hen. It would be outside most of the time and Mother Nature willing would lay an egg. The girls were fine with that, but no chance that would fly with K 😅

So one day on the radio K heard an advert. It was from the charity Guide Dogs. They raise dogs, who would assist visually challenged or people who need assistance in being mobile. It is a quite a good charity making solid and positive changes in the lives of people. The charity was asking for volunteers, especially men with tattoos and beards to raise puppies. The idea was, puppies need to be exposed to a wide range of appearances early on so that they can acclimatise to their future life where they could be paired with any person. The cause was asking for people to raise puppies from the age of 14 weeks to 14 months -ish. Then the puppies would be taken for training and if they passed put forth to be matched with people needing a guide dog.

 K has both - tattoos and beard! He came home super excited. It was a very good cause. Most of the costs of the care aspect, food, insurance, etc would be covered by the charity. All they needed from us was the time to raise a puppy through 1 year. I agreed.

This set off a chain reaction. First K had to fill in a very detailed application. Next detailed pictures of the house, the car, the neighborhood so that they were aware what sort of environment the puppy was potentially going to be in. After that, he went on to the interview. During the interview, he was informed that since there was another adult (me) in the house, it might be a good idea if I was made a supplementary applicant as well. Else for insurance purposes I would not be allowed to do anything for the puppy, for instance take if for a walk if K wasnt around for some reason. My application was a bit lighter than K's. But he took all the pain. My interview was quite straight forward too.

Once done through the stage, we awaited the results 😊 We received an email that we had been through and all that was needed was for us was to come to the centre and walk a dog for them to see our dog-handling skills. At the centre we were made to walk a gorgeous 17 month old called Peter. We were both oohing and aahing at how adorable he was. After the walk, we both were given the green flag and were officially recruited as puppy raising volunteers. 

Our coordinator Helen took us through a few more details. She recommended that since we had not had pets before and were first time puppy raisers, it would be a good idea to board a puppy for a few days. Puppy raisers do need to go away be for vacation or work. In that duration, they need boarders who would be willing to keep the puppy for a short duration. We were more than happy to house a pup for some days to get a feel of what it was like. 

That set another ball rolling. K looked up and found a ton load of stuff that would be needed. They were minor details he really wanted to sort - a drinking bowl, a bottle to carry water for the puppy, a blanket and many such small stuff. He got some second hand, some required trips to the shops, but he set up the house in perfect order to host our boarding puppy - Lucky.