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Dear Reader,
No doubt about it, today's guest author, Suzanne Woods Fisher, blessed us with a warm-hearted column that I really enjoyed reading--especially the word whirligigs!
Please email and welcome Suzanne to the book club. I know she'd love to hear from you. Email: suzanne@suzannewoodsfisher.com
Thanks for visiting Suzanne, take it away...
The World's Best Volunteer Job
If you're looking for me on Thursdays, chances are pretty good you'll find me at the World's Best Volunteer Job: socializing six-to-eight week-old puppies at Guide Dogs for the Blind in San Rafael, California. The puppies are mostly yellow and black Labrador retrievers or Golden retrievers, or a careful mix of both in what's referred to as a "cross." All heart-meltingly adorable.
Years ago, we'd just returned from Hong Kong, where we had lived in a 44 story high-rise for four years. We were back to our American lifestyle, backyard included. All that was missing was a dog. I shared my 8-year-old son's love of dogs. My husband, however, didn't, and thought he'd found a way to table this discussion indefinitely. "Find a purpose for having a dog, son, and then we'll talk"
That very week, my son brought home a permission slip for a field trip to Guide Dogs for the Blind in San Rafael, California. I immediately offered to chaperone. And what did we discover on that trip? A loophole! We had found a purpose for having a dog.
That field trip sparked a seventeen-year relationship with GDB. We raised ten puppies and eventually became custodians to four breeder dogs (another loophole!).
As for the puppy volunteering gig, that was just a stroke of good luck. It's the most sought-after position in a charity that is heavily dependent on volunteers. After the puppies are weaned from their moms, the litter is moved to the puppy kennel (heated flooring, classical music piped in). Here, they're introduced to loving human hands each day, all part of preparing them to be placed in a puppy raiser's home. A long chain of caring people who strive for the success of each dog to eventually become a guide to a visually impaired person.
Volunteering, anywhere, is always a wonderful idea--it helps keep our life balanced and whole, stretching us out of complacency. But volunteering with puppies--it's just the best! No matter what kind of week I've had, I leave GDB on Thursdays with joy in my heart. You just can't take life too seriously when puppies are tearing through the play yard with a stuffed bunny animal in their mouth, tails circling like whirligigs.
--Suzanne Woods Fisher
Email: suzanne@suzannewoodsfisher.com
More about today's guest author:
Suzanne Woods Fisher is an award winning, bestselling author of fiction and nonfiction books, including Amish Peace: Simple Wisdom for a Complicated World. She's written nearly thirty books, and still writes in her laundry room with two big yellow dogs snoozing nearby. Her new book is The Return, the third book in the Amish Beginnings series.
Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.
Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com
AUTHORBUZZ
THE LAST CHANCE MATINEE (Fiction) by Mariah Stewart
Secret families and family secrets, a Victorian mansion, a neglected Art Deco theater, and a chance to start over await the reluctant Hudson sisters when they arrive at their late father's childhood home to meet the terms of their inheritance. Loosely based on something that happened in my own family--without the theater and the Victorian mansion.
Go to AUTHORBUZZ click on THE LAST CHANCE MATINEE to read more and to email author Mariah Stewart, you'll get a reply.
* This month's Penguin Classics book is Devil on the Cross, by Ngugi wa Thiong'o. Click here to start reading, and be sure to enter the drawing for your chance to win a Penguin tote bag
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