Graduation Ceremony

During our graduation ceremony, Sarah Holbert, the CEO of CARES gave a grateful speech to all the people who helped them get the dogs trained successfully. If they were bred by CARES, they start at a home that welps the pups, then they go to a puppy raiser who trains them the basic commands. From there they go to a correctional facility to finish the training. When they are done, they come back to CARES to be tested and get health evaluations. Once they pass the test, we are invited to come to Concordia for the final assessment. We are trained as handlers how to give the commands and what the expectations are for the dogs. After a few days of that we have public access tests when we take the dogs out in public to see how well they behave with us and how they listen to our commands. IF they pass that test we are granted a handler license. Because it is such an intense program, they dogs are granted public access based on the Americans with Disabilities Act, Kansas law 39-1011 thru 39-1013. Some dogs do not make the cut. They can be adopted out as "career change" dogs. They are still excellent dogs, they just may not be cut out for the rigorous work that assistance dogs are expected to do.
I got off of the subject a little, but I wanted to show you pictures of our graduation ceremony. We were presented the dogs by either their puppy trainer or by the donator. We were lucky enough to be able to meet our breeder for Ronday. She is pictured with us.