This puppy experience is worth the pain of saying goodbye

When Chloe Gonzales tells people that she and her boyfriend and raise guide dog puppies, their first reaction is almost always, “How do you let them go? I could never do that.”

More than 100 guide dog puppies are being raised all over Texas. All sorts of people raise puppies: retired people, high-schoolers, college students, single people, families, children (with the permission and support of their parents), people with full-time jobs. And the most fun part is that the old saying is true for guide dogs, too: It takes a village.

Chloe and Tyler decided to raise their first guide dog puppy knowing that he would live with them for more than a year, and then they would take him to California and drop him off at the Guide Dogs for the Blind campus.

It was exciting, and it also was daunting: What if they fell in love with the puppy and couldn’t bear giving him away?

Read more about what it’s like to be a puppy raiser for Guide Dogs for the Blind in a story on our premium website.