Weekends with Daisy

Being a volunteer weekend puppy raiser for NEADS (National Education for Assistance Dog Services) was a lot like co-parenting in an amiable divorce mused Sharron, that is if your ex happened to be an inmate and your child was actually an adorable yellow Labrador puppy. Sharron would pick Daisy up at the prison on Friday evenings, spend the weekend with her socializing and going on training outings, and then return her to her inmate dog handler, Keith, on Sunday evenings. If all went well, Daisy would graduate from the Prison PUP program after a year and be matched with a disabled individual.

Raising Daisy, with her friendly, winning ways and puppy exuberance, was both more challenging and more rewarding than Sharron ever dreamed. Since Daisy wasn’t a pet, but in serious training to become a service dog, Sharron had to pay careful attention to Daisy’s signals and body language, follow through with the training Daisy learned from Keith, and, above all, be vigilant about not giving Daisy a Bad Experience that might jeopardize her success in the program.

The appealing Weekends with Daisy, by Sharron Kahn Luttrell, is a natural pick for dog lovers, of course, but many readers will enjoy this positive account of the NEADS program and the special relationship between Keith, Sharron, and Daisy.