Finnie excelled in his training as did his brother, Bert. We would meet the service dog foundation trainer at a nearby shopping mall, where the boys learned to ride elevators and escalators, go in and out of stores unobtrusively (guide dog puppies are taken into every kind of commercial enterprise, including the subway). The boys were being trained with both voice and hand signals, and both were progressing extremely well. One day, however, brought a stunning realization. Bert’s puppy raisers had begun to suspect that Bert’s hearing was impaired. He appeared bored, and he would fall asleep during training (highly unusual for these super-motivated working dogs). The service dog foundation sent him to Tufts for an evaluation, and it was determined that Bert was, indeed, profoundly deaf. Thankfully, Bert’s puppy-raisers had fallen in love with him, and agreed to adopt him, since he had to be removed from the guide dog program.
Finnie continued to pass all his progress testing with flying colors and in December of 2003, he was sent off for his more formal training. We were at once devastated – we missed him SO much! – and very, very proud of our beautiful boy.