RAISING TOLA
It’s big world out there and it’s filled with all kinds of fun things to do: There’s trash to sniff, bugs to taste and nice people who all seem to want to stop and say hello. Tola positively vibrated with excitement at the endless possibilities.
She was all bright-eyed and loosey-goosey with paws ready to splay out in play as she and a group of puppies visited an Office Depot in Torrance on a spring day, but this wasn’t a pleasure trip. There was work to be done, a destiny to be fulfilled. Tola doesn’t know it, but if all goes according to plan, in less than two years, she will become the eyes for someone who can’t see.
And it’s Pat Whitehead’s job to raise Tola from a rambunctious puppy to a dog mature enough to enter a rigorous five-month training program — college, they call it — at the San Rafael campus for Guide Dogs for the Blind.
The Manhattan Beach resident will do it without once raising her voice and without once raising her hand. With a soft voice and the manner of the world’s most encouraging kindergarten teacher, she’ll do it with gentle tugs of a leash, countless hours of practice and an endless supply of praise.
Except for the whites of her eyes, Tola is jet black from her nose to the tip of her tail. A Labrador retriever, she’s got floppy ears, rolls of extra skin that cascade down her forehead, paws too big for her body and a face that can switch from mournful to mischievous in a heartbeat. It’s almost too much to resist.
“They can be very manipulative,” Whitehead said with a knowing smile.
But no matter what gimmicks Tola pulls out of the puppy bag of tricks along the way, Whitehead will be ready for her. Since 1986, she’s raised 18 puppies to become guide dogs.
“I just have an affinity to animals,” she said. “I’ve always enjoyed it. It doesn’t feel like work.”
Whitehead is the head of L. A. Southwest Guide Dog Raisers, a collection of South Bay residents raising puppies of their own. At the Office Depot, Whitehead spent as much time correcting humans as she did Tola. It’s exacting work and people new to raising puppies can easily give in to a young dog’s charms. The group meets regularly and Whitehead visits members’homes weekly. She also has to fill out detailed reports about how the pups are progressing, which are forwarded to the Northern California headquarters where standards are kept high.
“It’s 24/7 to raise a puppy,” Whitehead said. “You need that consistency.”
Dogs being dogs, they will constantly push the boundaries to see how much trouble they can get into. They quickly learn they won’t have any luck with Whitehead.
“They test to see who the leader is,” she said. “If you let them get away with things, you become an enabler. You have to keep the goal in mind at all times. When they’re little and as cute as can be, it’s fun when they run at you. But at 80 pounds, it’s not so fun.”
The heavy-duty training will come later. Not until they head off to guide dog college will the dogs learn to navigate traffic, stop at obstacles, pull their owners away from danger and acquire the judgment to disobey a command if they think it’s not safe.
But for the first 18 months of their lives, it’s all about becoming well-adjusted, confident and social animals.
“The first year and a half is very important,” said Rick Wilcox, a puppy-raising adviser for Guide Dogs for the Blind. “That’s the time they really learn their basic good house behavior and good public behavior. It’s an invaluable service we could not really do.”
The dogs are bred from parents with strong bodies, alert minds and friendly personalities. Labrador retrievers like Tola are the most popular breed, with German shepherds and golden retrievers right behind. Poodles are starting to be used because they pose less of a problem to people with allergies. The organization places about 800 dogs a year with raisers like Whitehead.
That’s why they were visiting an office supply store. At 12 weeks old, the pups were still too small to explore on their own, so their handlers pushed them around in shopping carts. The sight of eight Lab puppies wearing green vests being wheeled around was enough to grind business to a near halt, with customers and workers stopping to watch and pat them on the head. Whitehead would prefer people didn’t do that, but she knows they will anyway.
Today, Tola is 7 months old and almost full grown at 57 pounds. Since that day at the store, she’s been in malls, offices and restaurants. She even rode a train from Long Beach to downtown Los Angeles, where she and dozens of dogs enjoyed the sights and sounds of Olvera Street. While there, Tola approached a woman wearing long plumes of feathers in her hair and seashells rattling on her sandals. Tola responded perfectly. She wasn’t cowed by the strangeness of the situation, but she didn’t fixate on it either.
She is still playful and tends to jump on people, but on a leash she walks like a champ. She’ll stop for a second to sniff something that catches her attention, but won’t linger. And she keeps as much focus on her surroundings as she does on Whitehead.
Tola is no ordinary pup. Her parents were culled from the finest guide dogs. She was bred to be smart, strong and good natured. It costs about $50,000 to raise and train a guide dog, but ultimate owners don’t have to pay a penny. The organization handles all expenses from the harnesses the dogs wear to the four weeks of training their new owners must go through. Founded in 1942, Guide Dogs for the Blind relies solely on private donations to pay for its services.
More than half the dogs make the final cut to be placed with blind people. The rest have what are called “career changes,” which means they become really great pets. That’s what happens to dogs that are too shy or not up to the rigorous physical standards.
But no matter where they wind up, they are virtually guaranteed a happy life.
Guide Dogs for the Blind sees to that. They put possible owners through a screening process and make sure the animals are well cared for and receive adequate medical care.
Even as a child, Whitehead helped train the neighborhood pets and there were always animals in the house, even as she raised two children. Over the years, she and her husband, Ed, have kept guinea pigs, chickens and a tortoise.
“My husband has said no to snakes, so no snakes,” she said.
In the mid-1980s, her two children persuaded her to try her hand at raising a guide dog, even though they already had a dog as a pet. “It was a way to get another dog in the house,” she said.
With a background in educational administration, Whitehead was always well organized. She took to the new task with enthusiasm. The onetime teacher of science and math was now a teacher of sitting and heeling.
The Whitehead house is now filled with barriers; Tola is not allowed to wander around unattended. She’s also not allowed to play fetch because it can increase her hunting drive. But life isn’t all work. Play time is essential and she gets to romp in the yard or play with other dogs regularly.
One of Tola’s friends is Beverly, a blond Lab who shares the same father (Guide dogs are generally named by the organization. Dogs of the same litter all have names that start with the same letter. Tola has brothers named (Tompkins and Tuck). Beverly’s raiser, Gail Hardy of Playa del Rey, comes over regularly for play dates. But even this is monitored. The dogs are not supposed to bite each other.
“They have play time every day,” Hardy said. “You need to release the stress of the day.” Like humans, puppies can become unruly when they reach adolescence. “Ten to 12 months is teen time,” Whitehead said. “They forget everything.”
Whitehead’s house also contains several dog crates for visiting puppies and a variety of stuffed animals and noise-making toys so Tola will learn not to become startled by the new and unexpected.
It’s practice that can have important consequences in the real world. It’s how a dog named Roselle was able to rescue her owner from the World Trade Center on 9-11. Michael Hingson, who has been blind since birth, was at work in the first tower to be hit when it buckled wildly. He didn’t know what happened, but he knew he had to get out. He called for the dog, who was sleeping under his desk, and together they walked down 78 floors.
“She wasn’t exhibiting any sense of fear,” Hingson said. “As firemen started coming up the stairwells, it got more crowded, but Roselle continued to do what I asked her to do.”
They managed to get outside, but Roselle’s skill was only just beginning to be tested.
“Going down the stairs wasn’t the hard part,” Hingson recalled. “The hard part was we were 100 yards from the second tower when it fell. It was a deafening roar. Roselle was able to focus through the crowds as we ran. The dust was so thick, we were literally drowning in it, but Roselle was able to continue to guide.”
They ultimately found refuge in a subway entrance. Hingson credits part of Roselle’s calm behavior to the person who raised her.
“Puppy raisers lay the basic foundation for whether we’re going to have a good dog,” he said. “I can’t overemphasize it.”
Most dogs don’t endure such traumatic events. But just getting around town can be a challenge their owners face every day. Stephen McGuire went blind seven years ago during an accident while in the National Guard. Now 32, he relies on his dog, Dara, to navigate around San Antonio where they live. Dogs are a responsibility many blind people choose not to take on, but for McGuire, getting the German shepherd was a choice he’s glad he made.
“I got the handle and told her to go forward,” he said. “I can’t tell you the sense of freedom I felt.” That was four years ago. The two are now inseparable.
“I don’t think we’ve been apart three days’ worth,” he said.
Dara was one of the pups raised by Whitehead. Once she sends her dogs to college, she visits them at graduation. And she often keeps in touch with the new owners.
“I can’t believe how many dogs she’s had graduate,” he said. “The success rate for shepherds isn’t that high. That ought to be telling you something about her training. She’s remarkable and I value her friendship. Dara was the perfect dog when I got her. I gave her all her bad habits.”
Whitehead keeps photo albums of all the dogs she’s raised. And there are pictures of a few of her favorites framed on the wall.
“Each one is so different, but you love them all,” she said.
For every puppy raiser, a time comes to say goodbye. It’s never easy, but they knew long before they ever brought the puppy home that the day would arrive.
“You get very attached to them,” said Wilcox of Guide Dogs for the Blind. “You love them like your own. But you go into this knowing that it isn’t your dog and you’re doing it for someone else. When you put them on that truck to go north, it’s difficult.”
It’s too soon to tell if Tola will make it to guide dog or wind up as a family pet. Whatever the future holds, Whitehead knows that she’s giving the pup as good a chance at making a difference as she can. And she takes pride in knowing about all the dogs she’s helped raise.
“You put a lot of yourself into them, I still get …” her words trailed off. “You say goodbye, but you feel so fulfilled. This dog is going to do her destiny.”
(This is part 1 of 3)