Hey everyone — let me know if this feels too promotional and I’ll happily take it down.
My partner and I are currently raising and training a future guide dog puppy named Stetson for the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB). These dogs are provided at no cost to people who need them — but demand far outpaces supply.
It takes 18–24 months to train a guide dog, and even then, only about half make it through the full program. Once placed, a guide dog works for only 6–8 years before retiring. That means one person might rely on up to ten guide dogs throughout their life.
These dogs are brilliant and unbelievably disciplined. Stetson will only go to the bathroom on command (so his future human knows it's safe and appropriate). When he's wearing his vest, he’s all business — you can drop kibble right in front of him and he won’t flinch. And when we say “head in”, he puts on his vest himself (we just do the buckle).
A really crazy concept is 'intelligent disobedience' - these super well trained dogs need to be able to identify an unsafe command and refuse it. Maybe their human wants to cross at a crosswalk but the dog sees traffic that isn't slowing down. They need to refuse the command to cross and wait until it's safe. That sort of cognition in a dog blows my mind.
Now, I grew up with dogs but was always hopeless at training — Stetson's skills are all thanks to the incredible CNIB trainers (who train us humans on how to train these epic pups). They coach us through everything and cover all of Stetson’s costs. It’s a huge commitment from CNIB, and it adds up fast.
That’s why Stetson (and my partner Christine) are taking part in the 2025 CNIB Pup Crawl. It’s a fundraiser to support this program — and anyone can join in. You can sign up, donate, or even just come cheer on a herd of goofball puppies during two 2.5 km walks happening here in Calgary.
If you are interested in what training a pup is like, ask me anything. If you have a few bucks to spare, please consider supporting CNIB, and if you are interested getting involved - do it - this is an incredible organization and the amount I've learned is wild.
Bob Vylan - like early Rage Against the Machine. Found out about them when they got banned from entry to the US - which is how I'm discovering most of my music these days.