Emma
It has been almost two months since we got the dreaded phone call that Emma would not be a guide dog. The official cause: luxating lumbar. Which means that her lower back isn’t stable and it moves in ways that it shouldn’t. This is our first career change for medical reason. It is sad because Emma would have mad a wonderful guide dog. She was born with this condition and in hind sight there were signs of it. She was terrible at tug. Sometimes when you pulled her on your lap (while sitting on the floor of course) she would let out a little yelp. She was always very slow to sit when given the command.
There is no way to know just how her future will progress. Hopefully her condition can be managed with pain meds and lifestyle choices. But she might need surgery. This makes her placement in a new home by Guide Dogs for the Blind more challenging. Not everyone is up to taking on a known medical challenge like this. Emma’s mom’s family met Emma when they brought Mauve to campus and seriously considered adopting her. But after talking with the vet at GDB they realized that their lifestyle is too active for Emma. We get a monthly update on her, which is really awesome. Here are the two we have gotten so far:
telling family tales 