Puppy Hugging at Southeastern Guide Dogs has become a favorite pastime for many pet lovers. Who can resist hugging and squeezing those bundles of fur with big innocent looking eyes whose bodies wiggle faster and tails wag straighter than their little paws can make it across the room?
Supporting Southeastern Guide Dogs, a nonprofit organization that helps people with visual impairments and other disabilities to live an independent life with the assistance of a guide dog, puppy huggers volunteer to play with the puppies, hold them in their arms, pet them and help socialize them. Feeling the love and attention of people at a very young age and become familiarized with new sights, sounds, smells and other sensations, puppies learn to interact with people and to trust them.
Southeastern Guide Dogs’ puppy hugging program has attracted unforeseen numbers of visitors interested in spending time with the puppies. In order to accommodate everyone and prevent pet lovers from having to wait for the next hugging session, Southeastern Guide Dogs has implemented a new system for the program, starting May 1, 2013. It asks pet lovers to make reservation ahead of time for Puppy Hugging sessions which are as follows:
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday
- Session A: 9 a.m. – 9:30 a.m.
- Session B: 10 a.m. – 10:30 a.m.
Pet lovers interested in the Puppy Hugging program can make reservations up to two months in advance. The sessions are limited to 20 people. To make reservations, click here.
Southeastern Guide Dogs breeds and raises selected kinds of dogs in its own facility and teaches them from puppyhood to become working canines. Providing skilled guide dogs to people in need of a canine companion, the organization carefully teams up the person and the guide dog. A good match depends on the person’s age, lifestyle and his or her way of walking. The organization also provides practice sessions to teach the new owner how to get along with his or her dog and how to handle and care for it.
Southeastern Guide Dogs also offers some of its trained dogs to other organizations that are in need of working dogs. In addition, it takes care of dogs that do not qualify for any of its programs and older dogs that cannot serve any more and cannot stay as pets with their owners or their owners’ relatives by finding them loving homes through a public adoption procedure.
Southeastern Guide Dogs’ main campus is located at 4210 77th Street East in Palmetto. For directions, click here.
For more information about Southeastern Guide Dogs, go to: http://www.guidedogs.org/ or call: 941-729-5665
Note: The book “The Richest Dog In Town” by Bruny Hudson, a collection of humorous stories featuring Hobo Hudson, a small terrier mix, is available in paperback at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other bookstores as well as on Kindle. To order at amazon.com, click here. The book is also available at the Three Legged Poodle, a pet food and supplies store, at 16621 U.S. Highway 301 S. at the southwest corner of U.S. Highway 301 and state Route 674 in Wimauma, Fla.
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