Deb:  Yeah. Okay. Okay.
Amy:  Kelly, how's Caspian doing? 
Kelly:  Oh, thanks for asking. He's doing great. He's been a good boy. And he's still -- I got a new collar. I had my person come out, my regional person, Lucy, came out. And they have a new type of collar that I hadn't seen before. It's material and it's thin, and it fits up right behind their ears and the high end of their neck. 

Amy:  Okay. 

Kelly:  So it gives you more control. 

Amy:  Okay. 

Kelly:  I was so glad that they had that instead of the spiky kind that point in. 

Amy:  Oh, yeah, I never even look at those, but --

Kelly:  - No. So it's good thing. 

Amy:  Yep. I wonder if that's the one that is -- I saw that the gift shop was advertising a new collar. I wonder if that's --

Kelly:  - It might be. 

Amy:  -- the same one or a similar one? 

Kelly:  Yeah. It's fabric, and it's about a quarter inch wide or so. And you just put it on up by their ears and behind their ears, and --

[Crosstalk 00:02:10]

Amy:  Hi, Kristin. It's Amy. 

Kristin:  Hi, Amy. 

Deb:  And we have about three minutes to start. 
 
Kelly:  Hi, Kristin. It's Kelly. Nice to meet you again. 

Kristin: Hi, Kelly. Nice to see you. 

Kelly:  Thank you. 

Kristin:  Hopefully this does not disappoint. 

Deb:  Oh, I think this going to be great. 

Amy:  I think it's going to be great. Yes. I agree. 

Kelly:  Yeah. I think it will be so interesting.

Kristin:  And I don't really know how long, so we may have a fair amount of time for Q & A at the end, if that's okay. 

Amy:  Absolutely. That'll do. 

Deb:  Oh, Maia, you're in the audience. Let me get you promoted. You were supposed to get -- hang on. There you go. You should be able to ...

Kelly:  Maia, are there?

Deb:  She isn't and she hasn't responded to the --

Amy:  Oh, here she comes. 

[Crosstalk 00:03:24]

Deb:  Oh. She is now. She's coming. 

Maia:  I'm here. I didn't have a link. Hello.

[Crosstalk 00:03:34]

Kelly:  Hi. And welcome. 

Maia:  Thank you. I am all ready to introduce you, Kristin. 

Kristin:  Sweet.
. 
Kelly:  I'm ready to introduce you, Maia. 

Amy:  Oh, boy. And who's introducing Kelly? 
 
Deb:  Yeah, Amy must be introducing Kelly. Well, this will take up most of the event, guys. [Crosstalk 00:04:02]. So thank everyone for coming. 

Amy:  I didn't have to prepare anything. 

Kelly:  Yeah, that's okay. 

[Crosstalk 00:04:10]

Deb:  I love it. Yeah. All right, so let me just double check that we're going to be recording over here. 

Maia:  I'm turning my screen off, my camera off, because you're just going to see my bun while I'm reading. 

Kelly:  We're not going to see much. 

Kristin:  I think it's already recording. 

Deb:  Yeah, it is. Yeah. But I'm going to record on my desktop as well because Zoom isn't always entirely reliable about this. So just a moment while we do that.
 
Amy:  Speaking while you're -- did Lauren get a hold of you, Deb, regarding the recording question? 

Deb:  Uh huh. Yeah. We did that.

Amy:  Okay, perfect. I figured you guys did. 

Deb:  We are ready. And we are recording. 
 
Kelly:  Okay. Well, welcome, everybody, to the Speaker Series. This is the summer version of the Speaker Series. And this is Kelly Egan. And I am here to tell you that today we're going to talk about what we cannot or do not see at GDB. We're going to learn what's going on behind the scenes. Won't that be interesting? I can't wait. 

Anyway, thank you all for joining. And I am going to hand this off to Maia Scott, who is also on the Alumni Board, who will introduce our executive leader Kristin Lucas to tell us more. So we've got a nice lineup, and we will have some great information to share among all of us. Then we'll have at the end an opportunity to ask questions and to chat. So right now, I'm going to hand it off to Maia. And welcome, everybody. 

Maia:  Well, hello. I have the absolute pleasure of introducing the amazing Kristin Lucas. And I would love to read a short bio and then also ask a single question of you, Kristin, if you don't mind.
 
Kristin:  Sure.
 
Maia:  So, beginning her 28th year of service at Guide Dogs for the Blind, Kristin is responsible for the Canine and Community Operations of the organization. This includes canine research, breeding, neonatal, veterinary, puppy raising, dog placement, and foster care, oh, yes, and the 2000 plus volunteers connected to these operations, just little things like that.

With organizational strategy as the scaffolding. Canine and Community Operations works with client programs to ensure that GDB provides relevant, exceptional service to produce and maintain successful working guide dog teams and canine buddy partnerships. 

Kristin has a BS in Psychology with a concentration in Neuroscience from the University of California at Riverside and has always had a strong interest in teaching, coaching, and mentoring. She holds an MA in Special Education, Orientation, and Mobility from San Francisco State University. Kristin loves to cook for people, grow fruits and veggies, and hike. She lives in Petaluma, California with her spouse and almost six-year-old daughter. Other members of the family include a wonderful Vizsla named Bricks and a career change yellow Labrador named Sunny Buttons whose given name is Sunlight. 

Kelly:  Wow. 

Maia:  And I have to ask this one other question because I have an inner five-year-old that's of my own that's very close and wants to know why about everything. So I'm really curious. To start things off before you get into your presentation, what drew you to Guide Dogs? And how did you end up where you are right now doing this work? 

Kristin:  That's a really great question, Maia. And it's funny because it started in fourth grade, and there was this young man in my class whose mom was cooler than my mom. So he was allowed to raise puppies for Guide Dogs for the Blind. And he got to show up to school with his puppy in the green vest. And he got to wear his 4H outfit with his green vest. And I was very jealous and asked and asked and asked, and my mom said no and no and no. And so I set about a life mission to achieve my Guide Dogs for the Blind goal, despite my mom getting in the way in the fourth grade. 

It really was by happenstance that I was on the track to become a veterinarian, and I bought a calendar with a bag of dog food, and it was another service dog organization, but every month highlighted a working team, not the dog but the team. And I had my epiphany midway through college that I could do the things I loved with animals and still coach and teach and do all of those things. And so I shifted my sights into basically the career that I have today. 

Maia:  Love it. And to moms out there, just tell your kids not to do something and of course they'll do it. They say that you say that they shouldn't, and maybe they'll grow up to be like Kristin. 

Kristin:  I'll give my mom that info. I want to jump in and say that I need to update my bio because I lied to all of you. I either did that or I did my math wrong. But I am 27 years, not 28. So I felt like I needed to clarify that. And I also realized that you got the very sort of professional, outward facing bio but not really my GDB bio. Like, how did I get where I am right now? Where did I start? And so I did want to give the information just so that you all understand that I spent the bulk of my career in the training realm, training and client services. I began as an instructor assistant and then went into the apprenticeship. Following my apprenticeship, I became a licensed guide dog instructor. And then shortly after that, I went to San Francisco State to get my orientation and mobility degree. 

I spent many years as the apprentice program instructor, teaching the curriculum to the apprentices. And I did a brief stint as a training class supervisor and followed that up with director of training for our California campus. So most of my career has been in the training realm. And I've been with the executive team at GDB for the last eight or nine years.
 
Maia:  Thanks for the inside story and all the fabulous details about what's led up. It makes all sense. Thank you for sharing all of it. 

Kristin:  Okay, I assume you are ready for me to jump in and give a behind the scenes look of what Canine Operations is. I'm not likely to land on everybody's -- the thing that they wanted to know. So hopefully the Q & A at the end can get to that. 

Canine Operations sounds very dog-focused, except that none of our dogs are without people at any point in time during this journey. So the second part of my title is the community part, and that community part is the extensive volunteer base that we have in breeding and in puppy raising, foster care, and even our neonatal department, which has over 100 volunteers. So the number of volunteers that it takes to do our mission is in the thousands. 

Maia, you have a question or not? Your little hand went up. 

Deb:  I don't think she meant to do that. I think she was trying to mute.
 
Kristin:  Okay. Got it. I will just continue. So I think knowing that our volunteer numbers are in the thousands, we also need to recognize that it's not just those direct volunteers. Those direct volunteers have families and they have employers and they have schools and they have social communities who all contribute to making our mission happen. 

It's probably easiest for me to kind of go through the lifecycle of the dog. But I do want to start with the overarching statement that everything that we do is for you. It's for our clients. Without the clients, we wouldn't be doing anything with dogs. We are not a dog business. We are here for client service. 

So sort of starting with that, each one of you has made the decision to be a guide dog handler. And we have been preparing your dog for many years before you even come in to get that dog. So it's going to be about choices that we make on who we breed to make what dogs and why and how that leads to the match that you're looking for.
 
So let's talk a little bit about breeding because that's where we're going to start. That's where we're going to get our puppies. Our breeding team at GDB is six staff strong, and two of those staff members are actually hybrid members who work half time in our neonatal department and half time as reproduction specialists in our breeding department. Our breeding program also has over 200 volunteers. 

The staff team has the scientific background to make the genetic decisions to do the ovulation timing with our females so that they know when the right time to breed them is. They're able to ensure adequate fertility with the males. And they have the people and the canine skills to match our breeder custodians with the right dog. They also have responsibilities for managing these relationships with these breeder custodian volunteers for the long term. 

We have over 150 dogs in our breeding colony right now, and more than 100 of those are female. There's an ebb and flow to the number. We retire a certain number of breeders each year, and we have to replenish that number each year as well. Our females do not have more than four litters in their career. Our males have a much longer career. And in fact with freezing or cryogenics, we are able to preserve them almost indefinitely, which is pretty neat. Jenna, our breeding manager, always refers to pupsicles. We are able to thaw the frozen semen and bring an old stud dog back into our line. 

Our breeding custodians are active volunteers with our organization. They come in for dog handling and training classes, workshops. They receive communications to stay connected to our mission. They attend our volunteer events, and many of them have other volunteer roles on campus. They all live within a 50-mile radius of our California campus, and their breeder dog is integrated into their home as a pet. 

If they have a mama dog, they let us know when she comes into season. And our breeding manager makes the decision on whether to breed that time or to skip. If the decision is to breed that female, then a stud dog is selected, and the custodian of the stud dog gets a phone call, and they bring their boy in for a few days. We cross our fingers and hope magic was made. And I will say our conception rate is pretty darn high, so we're very successful when we do make those matches. 

A side note about our breeding program -- it's a world leader. We provide extensive support to other schools throughout the world, both in education and in sharing our colony through collaborative breeding. Sharing the genetics with other working dog organizations strengthens everyone's colony, and it makes for stronger working dogs across the board. So the international community is really looking to lift each other and to lift the entire industry up. And we do that through collaborative breeding and knowledge sharing. 

Okay, so we've done the breeding, and now we're ready for the puppies. And that is another department. That's our Canine Welfare Neonatal Department. This team is about 40 members strong. They are a team that cares for the adult dogs within the breeding program when they're on our campuses as well as the puppies. They are a 24 hour a day, 365 days a year department. There are no days off, no breaks. 

To give some perspective, because I'm not sure how much people know or not, but at any given time, we have 100 to 130 puppies in our Puppy Center. We have anywhere from seven to eleven moms giving birth each month. We have over 100 volunteers who work specifically with the neonatal department, most of whom are puppy socializers. But a lot of folks do come in to take the adult dogs out for walks and get them out every day. 

We are interacting with these puppies from the moment they're born with the intention of helping them on their path to becoming a guide dog. Our Puppy Center is built for quiet, relaxing birth. The lights dim. We keep the whelping pod as quiet and calm as we possibly can. And then as the puppies grow, they're handled, talked to, music is played. There's different sight, sounds, and smells in the Puppy Center. There's puppy playtime, structured socialization time. We use different surfaces, introduce them to walking on a leash. We tie little pieces of fabric around their bodies when they're tiny to get used to the feel of the puppy vest and then, ideally, getting used to the idea of the harness. We get the puppies used to having their feet handled and their heads and their ears and their mouths. We begin nail trimming in the Puppy Center. So these are all puppies that are under ten weeks of age that we're doing all of this work with. 

The mama dogs inside the puppy center also get their time. There's play yards in the building, and they have grooming and pampering days, and we have volunteers who come in and spend time snuggling with them, so basically prescribed TLC during their stay in the Puppy Center. 

And we're getting ready to exit these puppies from the Puppy Center, but before we do that, we need to make sure they all have a name. And so we get into puppy naming. And puppy naming is more complicated than most people may be aware of. It's one thing to name one dog. It's another thing to name 11 litters in a month with the rules that we have with regards to naming. 

So I thought it would be fun to share a little bit of information about this, especially since we've made a little change in the last six months or so to this. A very simplified explanation is that our breeding department assigns a letter of the alphabet to a litter and the breeder custodians and the puppy raisers of the mom and dad are invited to offer possible names. Now ideally they offer these names by the time the puppies are three weeks of age because there's a timing component to this for us.

All of the submitted names need to be put through a process to determine if the name is even available. We don't have two active dogs with the same name, and we don't reuse breeder names as a standard. There are some exceptions to that, but typically once the breeder name is in our lineage we want to keep that clean if we can. We occasionally have donors who've sponsored a puppy, and so they can submit names for consideration as well. And our goal is to have all of these puppies, that 100 to 130 that I referenced, all have their names in the database well in advance of their six week puppy physical that they have with our vet team. And this is so that our vet team can put together their files and have everything organized and working appropriately. So hopefully that gives an idea of how tight the turnaround time on something like that is. We are constantly having babies, and the cadence of this process is pretty fast, and it's nonstop.

And I already said naming one is hard. Names are such a personal thing. Naming your child or your own pet dog can take a lot of time. We know that names can remind us of things. Sometimes that's good things, and sometimes that's not so good things. We recognize we don't always land on a name that is a client favorite. We do have some guidelines to help us avoid pitfalls, and we share these guidelines with the volunteers and the donors who submit names. But ultimately it is up to our staff to ensure that the guidelines are followed. 

And we do this by committee now. And this is the change where we've brought in members of veterinary, puppy raising, training, client services, and our neonatal department. And once we sort of filter all of the names through to make sure that they're available and they go through considerations that I'll read out in just a minute, that committee is like "Yep, all of those names meet the guideline," or "No, somebody missed something on that one because this is what that name means to me, and I think that that's not going to be a very positive thing if we put the puppy out with that name." 

So what we want to do is get everybody who's submitting names to understand who is going to have this dog for the majority of the time. Our raisers are going to have this dog for 12 to 14 months. And our instructors are going to work with this dog for 12 weeks, maybe a little bit longer. But our clients are going to have to say this name hundreds of times a day. This is a lens we look through. It is something that is factored in. We share out with anybody submitting names that while it can be great fun we want to make sure there's no duplicate names of active dogs and that our clients and our volunteers have diverse backgrounds with different views and beliefs and traditions and we aim to be inclusive when choosing a name for a puppy that our hope is will someday become a trusted guide for a client or a canine buddy or a member of our breeding program. 

So I'm just going to read the guidelines for a sec so you have an idea of what we're considering. And I'm sure many of you are like I have a dog who or I had a dog whose name does not fit these guidelines. And so I'll just go back to the very top where I say sometimes we don't land on it exactly right, but we get better and better as we go through. 

So the names should be easy to pronounce. They should not be more than three syllables. There's a caveat that sometimes four can work because it's about the ease of pronunciation. The names shouldn't sound like our general commands for guide work and obedience. The names should not be offensive or have any negative connotations. And we recommend to people before they submit the name that a simple web search of is this -- and put the word in there -- offensive can give a good history. Religious, divisive, controversial, or politically charged names or Native American tribal names are not to be used.
 
And then for support in determining if a name is inclusive, we ask people to consider what is the origin of the name they're putting forward? Does the name reinforce negative stereotypes? Does the name have any cultural, historical, or political significance, past or present? What does this name mean to a specific culture? And does this name represent traditional or sacred elements of a culture that have profound meaning for its members? 

So we're asking people to consider a lot because it's important. Again, you all have these dogs for an extended period of time, and the names should not be the problem. I imagine I might have some questions on that when we get to the Q & A. 

So our puppies all have their names, and they're eight to ten weeks of age, and they're ready to go into their puppy raising homes. But before I get there, I want to talk about our veterinary operation at least the ones on the California campus where these puppies are Veterinary is throughout the life cycle of the dog, so they're going to come back into this presentation more than one time. 

But for how they relate to our breeding and our neonatal operations, I wanted to talk a little bit about our lovely Dr. Kris Gonzalez. She is our staff theriogenologist, which is basically a veterinarian who specialized in animal reproduction. She works very closely with our breeding department, specifically the reproduction specialists on the ovulation timing and the semen freezing and inseminations. She's also part of our full veterinary team, and they take care of all of the dogs on our campuses. 

And our veterinarians and our registered veterinarian technicians are the ones who complete any C-sections that need to happen with our mom dogs. They're on call every night where there's a possible birth, and they work in concert with our neonatal department. Our vets do litter checkups inside the Puppy Center. And that Puppy Center is considered a secondary vet site for us. It has to be held to all of the same standards, rules, and regulations as a vet clinic. It contains full medical exam rooms, radiology, et cetera. 

So the puppies are ready to leave when they're eight weeks old and our vet team has given them a clean bill of health. And they're ready to head out for their volunteer puppy raising experience. This puppy raising team is comprised of sort of two different sides. We have an administrative puppy raising team, and then we have the field team. There's approximately 20 team members total, and they work with the 2000 plus volunteers that come in the form of club leaders, raisers, puppy sitters, et cetera. 

So we have a responsibility to keep a pipeline of active and engaged volunteers who are ready for this twelve month plus experience. And we have to have them ready so that when those puppies hit that eight weeks of age, they come and pick them up and out they go. And this is a dance -- it really is -- to ensure that all of the operational pieces work in concert with each other. You don't want your pipeline of volunteers to slow down at a time when your puppy numbers are high. And you don't really want your puppy numbers to slow down when your volunteer numbers are high. So there's a lot of collaborative work that has to be done to ensure that the whole thing is working smoothly. 

It's our admin and logistics side of the puppy raising team who ensure available puppy raisers, communicate timelines, schedule the puppy trucks to deliver puppies and pick up the adult dogs for training. They make the airline cargo arrangements for puppies who fly to their raisers. There's a ton that happens. The admin team also handles end-of-career logistics. So they contact the raisers when guides have retired or when they've passed on. If raisers are adopting retired guides, this admin team often helps with the transportation logistics. I am going to mute and cough for just a moment. 

Okay. Thank you. The puppy raising field structure is very similar to the client services field structure in that client services has field service managers that have geographic territories that they're responsible for. Our puppy raising field managers have the same thing. They have a geographic zone with a set number of puppies and set is in air quotes -- I'm putting my fingers up -- because that puppy number fluctuates. It's not it must be 70 puppies. It ebbs and flows anywhere from 50 to 90 puppies. But we're looking at keeping a balance if we can. 

We have puppy clubs which are led by volunteer leaders. And those volunteer leaders oversee a number of puppy raisers within their club. And then our staff member, who's the puppy raising field manager, has all the club's leaders and raisers within their territory. 

Now, there's a formal curriculum. There are meetings, both virtual and in person. There are in person evaluations at set times. And the raisers, with their leader's input, provide monthly reports on each puppy. And their whole goal is to love and socialize and provide foundational support for these dogs to get them to what we call recall ready status, which is being of an age and a behavior and growth point that meets the requirements that were mutually agreed upon with the training department and puppy raising. 

And these requirements fall into the buckets of house behavior, relieving, distraction, confidence, and management. There's no expectations that the puppies are perfect before they come in for training at all, but we want them to have enough of a foundation to be prepared to move on to the next level. 

When I go back to the beginning when I said everything that we do is for the clients, I wanted to take the time to point out a couple of the things that our raisers do with clients in mind. They commit to doing a lot of socialization outings that prepare these dogs for a variety of lifestyles, since we don't know who the dog is going to be matched with when they're this young. So we're looking at lifestyles and interests that clients may have. So examples include putting together really big experience days with our partners like Alaska Airlines to give puppies the experience of going through TSA and boarding a plane and getting settled under the seat. 

We also have clubs that make connections with like their local ballet or a local music community to set up safe experiences for these dogs to get socialized to. We do a lot of sporting events for the same reasons. So takes a lot of time and effort to wrangle all of the moving parts. But bottom line is the foundation that it provides for these dogs when they're young is key for them to become working dogs in the future. 

And I said I was going to bring the vet clinic back a bunch. So we talked about the vet clinic as it relates to our breeding and neonatal. But now let's talk about our vet clinic as it relates to these puppies who are out in the 10 western states in the United States. A lot of you as clients might utilize our veterinary financial assistance program. You call in, get one of our VFA team members, work through a situation with your guide or your retired guide, get an authorization, get your dog checked out and cared for, and GDB can assist with the financial component. 

This exact same process works for every puppy raiser in the field. So there's 900 plus puppies in the field at any given time. Those puppies, they have wellness expectations, they have vaccines they need on a certain schedule, they need Heart Gard, they need flea control. And they also deal with all of the health considerations, I think, that come with being alive. They get upset tummies, they get stung by bees, they can get a cough, they can have goopy eyes, you name it. So each one of our vets has assigned puppy raising field managers, and so they cover a territory. They might have -- one vet might have two or three puppy raising field managers that they're the go to vet for. And they help ensure the continuity of care for these puppies. And they're keeping a finger on the pulse of the health of these dogs as they're being raised. Each one of our vets is on call on any given night to cover VFA for puppy raising and for clients. So basically we have coverage for both populations 24 hours a day. 

So we've got this puppy. It's been through this amazing experience with this volunteer family and everybody who's attached to this family. We've determined that it has achieved recall readiness, and we need to bring this puppy in for training. When we think about bringing dogs in for formal training, it's another operational dance. We know we need a certain number per recall or per month, and that's based on the number of available instructors to train and the clients that we're looking to serve. Our recalls are scheduled a year in advance and we have to take into account weather patterns, holidays, anything that's going to make transportation challenging. There are times that we can't fly dogs because of heat embargoes and things like that. And another example is like we can't pick dogs up in the puppy truck from Colorado in the winter. So we have to work our recalls around those different things. 

The puppy raising team gets together with the breeding team and the training team to talk about which dogs are coming in what month. So everybody sits down and talks about, okay, we have all of these dogs who are ready. We need to bring in the right mix to make sure that our breeding team can evaluate dogs to replenish the breeding colony but that training has enough dogs to begin the formal training and that our vet clinic is prepared to do all of the breeder medical exams as well as the in-for-training exams for the training dogs. 

So the medical exams for breeders include checking their hips, elbows, eyes, and heart. And the eyes and the heart are with outside specialists. So we have the calendar set up with the outside specialist a year in advance as well -- and this is for both of our campuses -- to make sure that we are on the schedule and that we can get these dogs looked at before we start training them. 

So getting into training, my guess is this might be the place that you know the most about. It is also no longer a program that's under my umbrella. But my hope is that it's clear from what I've said already that our organization is only as strong as our collaboration, and puppy raising and training go hand in hand. These two teams are critical for each other, so it's imperative that we're on the same page and our end goal is successful partnerships. 

So I'm not going to spend a lot of time talking about training, but just very quickly, I think most of you probably know these dogs come in for a 12 week training cycle. Before they can get started, they have to undergo they're in-for-training evaluation, that is their hip check, their elbow check, eye check, full review of their medical history. 

Each instructor is assigned four dogs for that 12 week cycle. It's an extremely structured cycle. And yet every dog is an individual, and there's room for that. So if a dog needs more time with a certain skill or in a certain environment or if a dog falls ill for a period of time, we provide the adjustment for that, and it just might take a little bit more time for that dog to make it through training. 

This is going to take me to foster care. Foster care is another one of those places like veterinary where they are there in so many different stages of a dog's life that it's hard to kind of put them in a circle of operations because they pop in and they pop out. But we have over 300 foster care homes between our two campuses. And I will say we also have this network of puppy raisers who never fail to amaze in their generosity. So we can have a need that happens far afield of our campuses, and if we call on the raiser community, somebody will raise their hand and be a foster for somebody's guide or retired guide out in the field as we're trying to get them back to one of the campuses. 

At any given time, we have 40 to 55 dogs in California that are in foster care homes and 25 to 30 dogs in Oregon that are in foster care. And some of these are what we call commuter foster care or working foster care, in that these volunteers drop the dogs off at 7:30 in the morning to campus Monday through Friday, and they come back and pick them up at 04:00 in the afternoon. They get to progress in their training and they get everything that the dogs staying and the kennels get, but they spend the nights with the foster care providers and they spend the weekends.

Our noncommuter foster care homes -- more standard, if you will -- handle significant medical situations, a dog who has cancer, is recovering from surgery, a dog with a congenital anomaly. They also provide a relaxing place for our guides who are on campus in long term boarding. So oftentimes we'll have a client who has an illness or injury, and the best decision for that particular client and dog is for the dog to come back to one of our campuses, and we will look for a foster care placement for that dog. They are a really giving, compassionate, amazing group of volunteers. And very much like the breeder custodians, they have training and dog handling classes they come to. They receive medical education from our vet team, and they come to our volunteer events. And they're really fully embedded in the mission of Guide Dogs for the Blind.
Dog placement is another group of the dog operations, if you will. And this team comes in for dogs who do not become breeders, guides, or canine buddies. So they handle career change dogs who are returned, which is not very many per year, any retired guides that need help with placement. 

Now, our goal as an organization is to place each one of the dogs that we breed into service if we can, if not with us, then with somebody else, really, is our goal. We have 12 to 15 community partners, other agencies that provide service dogs to individuals with disabilities. Some examples are hearing dogs or PTSD support dogs or mobility for folks other than visually impaired individuals. Each one of these community partners that we have, they must meet our requirements for dog welfare, for training techniques, for financial stability. They aren't allowed to take money, to charge for the dogs that they provide to their clients. 

And if the dogs are not suited to this line of work, then we have over 3000 applications from the general public, and we handle that huge number of applications in a best dog for best home situation, not a first come, first serve basis. There is an application, there's a phone interview, and then everyone meets in person to ensure that it's the right placement for one of our dogs. 

Back to veterinary. I'm just going to keep talking about veterinary. To give a little bit of a broader -- so I've talked about breeding and neonatal, and I've talked about puppy raising plug into the VFA. But basically our vet team can be looked at in three separate units that all work in conjunction together to form one big team. We've got our Oregon campus vet team, our California campus vet team, and our veterinary financial assistance team. We also have a relief pool of vets and vet techs that brings our number to the team being 35 to 40 members strong. 

Collectively, this team provides all the direct, hands on care for all campus dogs, and they provide the telephonic support for all guides, retired guides that are with grads or family members, all puppies in raiser homes, and all of our active breeding stock dogs. So we are talking about thousands of dogs that they are responsible for. Dr. Kate Kuzminski is our medical director, and she has full organizational responsibility for all veterinary operations. 

That's a lot of talk about the connections with the dogs, but I want to bring it back to the fact that each one of these dogs is connected to a human and that our vet team has to -- and they all do -- have the skill set to have wonderful interactions with staff, breeder custodians, raisers, clients, local vets, specialists. They really have to be people people not just dog people. I think it's one of the very unique things about our veterinary program here is that it's very different than a private practice clinic. And I can't say enough about our vet team. They are just wonderful human beings. 

Our VFA program is an industry leading program. We have subject matter experts running the program. So Dr. Erin Matern is the DVM, and then we have two registered vet techs that are with the program as well. And these folks triage the calls that come in. They support the clients and the puppy raisers. They grant the authorizations. They liaise with the local veterinarians. And then they do all of the data entry, updating medical records, working with accounting to reimburse clients and puppy raisers. So it's an extensive and industry leading program. 

And then I am happy to report that just this week our new director of Canine Research and Development started. So Monday was her first day. We've been waiting a long time for her because she was in academia and she needed to finish up her school year as a professor. Her name is Dr. Sarah-Elizabeth Byosiere, and she comes to us with extensive experience in animal behavior, canine cognition, and the human-canine bond, which is awesome. She began her career at the University of Michigan, and she's worked at various canine cognition and behavior research groups, including the Duke Canine Cognition Center. She has a BS in Biopsychology, Cognition, and Neuroscience, an MS in Biopsychology, and a PhD within the Department of Psychological Science. She was recently the assistant professor in the Animal Behavior and Conservation Program within the Department of Psychology at Hunter College. And she was the director of the Thinking Dog Center, where her focus was on studying the behavior and cognition of domestic dogs and other companion animals. So we are super excited to have her. 

GDB is involved in research. We do research. We just haven't had a formal program with somebody leading it and taking us into the future. And we are beginning that right now. Some of the things that we're working on in the right now is a canine health and longevity survey. So the long term goal is that this is an annual survey that goes out to owners of all GDB populations -- it doesn't matter the status of the dog, retired guides, guides, career change dogs -- to obtain medical and end-of-life information. And these surveys are essential for us to track medical trends and flag important genetic conditions. And so this information will also be used to guide breeding and mate selection choices. 

And our overarching goal with all of the research that we do is increasing the health and longevity of all GDB dogs. So, super excited to have her on board, and there will be more to come on that that we'll share with the client community, obviously. 

The part that I skipped in sort of the lifecycle of everything was that these dogs got matched with the clients and went through class and graduated and were back out in the field. I figured all of you have experienced that, so I didn't talk anything about that. And then we've already talked about the VFA, where our veterinary team plugs back in with the clients once you've graduated. If you need us, we are here, just a phone call. So I think I'm going to take a pause and say that I'm officially done, and I'm open for questions that anybody may have. 

Deb:  All right. If you do have questions, you can raise your hand. Most of you have probably been in the webinars before with us or with someone else, and so you will not receive permission to talk until you are acknowledged, but then we will. And we'll also use the Q & A box, so you're welcome to also do that. And so that's how we will do it. And Holly will be first. 

Holly:  Hey, Kristin. It's Holly McKnight from Texas. Got a question for you. One of our Texas puppies, who we're very proud of, just graduated a couple months ago. And he was actually on the right. I know he had been through all of his training on the left, and then he went back through. So how does the dog like that get picked, and when do they do it? 

Kristin:  There was a little blurb in there, but what I gathered from that is the dog is trained on the right side now. 

Holly:  Yes. So when do they choose that, and how do they do it? 

Kristin:  Yeah, I would say most of the time it's chosen about the halfway point. So they'll train the dog on the left, which is most comfortable for the instructors, right. And we're just used to it, muscle memory and everything. If everything's looking good, temperament, all of that, then they begin the process of moving the dog over to the right and making sure that they can handle that, and then they finish them out in that fashion. We want to make sure the dog is right for the person, and you end up customizing that dog for the individual. 

Holly:  Cool. Thank you.
 
Deb:  All right. 

Kim:  Oh, hi. Yeah, I'm unmuted now. Sorry about that. Yeah, it's Kim Kilpatrick from Ottawa, Canada. And I thought this was so fascinating. Thank you for taking us through the cycle. I just had a question about the dogs that were in foster care when they were in training when you said the commuter foster care dogs. Why would that be? Would they be stressed in the -- like what would be the reason why they would stay not in the kennel? Would there be some indicators of why they should have that as opposed to the other dogs that are in the kennels? 

Kristin:  Yeah. I think that's a really good question, and I think you're right on. It's that some of the dogs just don't thrive in the kennel environment. And we do everything that we can. We provide lots of enrichment. We have staff there all the time. They get out, they get exercise, they have roommates. We consider all of that. And I think the bottom line is that some individual dogs just are not going to be at their best for learning in that environment. And we don't want that to stop them from becoming a guide because being able to live in a kennel shouldn't be the requirement. And so we will always bring that dog out of that environment to see if it was the environment that was in the way of something. It's been a very successful program for us. We love having it. We would love to have more of these foster care providers. They're wonderful. But yes, it is based on the dog showing signs to us that they would do better in a home environment. 

Deb:  Latice. Okay. We haven't heard from you yet. How about Keith? [Inaudible 00:55:38].

Latice:  I'm sorry. 

Deb:  Yeah, go ahead. 

Latice:  I'm trying to get used to this. Well, my question is going back to the dogs guiding on the right. What if there's a door hinge that is on the left and the door doesn't open on the right? What happens then? 

Kristin:  Oh, you are going to challenge me to go back to my days of training a dog. What I'm going to say is that it will work out and that the dogs learn and the instructors teach them. And the challenge is if a client has had a dog on the left side and then they have to transition to the right side because of an injury or something, then they also have to get used to the difference in how that feels. But if it's a first time client with a right side dog, they don't know anything different, and we just teach them, and it's fine. But, yes, it takes a little bit of getting used to is what I will say. 

Latice:  Okay. Thank you. 

Deb:  Keith. 

Keith:  Thank you. Yes. Keith Ellis, Sacramento, California with Bubba. I was just wondering how did the COVID pandemic kind of impact the operations during lockdown and all that? 

Kristin:  That is a huge question, Keith. It had a major impact, and we're still working our way through that impact. We shut down for a while in terms of we got the training dogs out into homes. We had dogs already bred, so we had all of the litters, and the neonatal team kept going. But at the beginning, when we didn't know what was going to happen, we paused breeding for a few months, and then we brought breeding back, but only at the halfway mark for an extended period of time. 

So the upshot of that is that there's a lower dog population. And that lower dog population, it takes a long time to fix that because it takes two years to make the breeding decision and then get to the point of a guide. So I think the clients, unfortunately, are the ones feeling it, in that our service delivery time is not what we want it to be. And we're working our hardest to get back up to where we need to be. But it's the patience that it takes to get through that dip that was caused by not being at full breeding during the pandemic. 

Keith:  Thank you. 

Deb:  So in the Q& A box, Afron, basically following along Keith's question asks, "Do you have any sense of when GDB will be sort of back to normal in dogdom?" I guess.
 
Kristin:  Yeah, it's a good question. I think that I can give you the canine side, and then I would leave it to our client programs to communicate out what that means to client wait time and all of that. But we are right now breeding at about -- I want to say -- 80 percent to 90 percent. And we have a little upgrade to do in our Puppy Center that we will be finished with in September, which will then allow us to get up to the 100 percent. But again, that 100 percent that we get to on the breeding side of things translates into 100 percent a year and a half to two years from now. 

Deb:  Diane. 

Diane:  Hi. I just want to go back to the breeding process. How do you choose what male dog for the female? How do you pair them up?

Kristin:  I rely heavily on the subject matter experts in the breeding department to make that call. What I will say is that they look at the genetic lines of both of the dogs. And there are certain things that we have estimated breeding values for where the dog might carry something in their line. We want to know what's the likelihood that that's going to carry forward, and do we want it to or not. And our breeding manager will line the male and the female up to ensure that it puts everything on the positive side to the best of our ability. It isn't -- like if, let's say, one dog has some I'll just use skin stuff in its line, some skin itchiness or whatever, you wouldn't take a male and a female that had that and breed them. You would want to go against that with one side. 

Diane: Okay, thank you. 

Deb:  I have no idea who this next person is. They bravely identify themselves as Guide Dogs for the Blind. So let's find out who you are. Yeah. And while we're waiting for that to happen, let's see what we got here. Let's go with -- why is that not working? Sorry about that. Okay, let's go with Joani. 

Joanie:  Okay, it's Joani, and I have Sakura, and I came to train in 2022 in early February. And I was told that there had been Stargardt's disease, but it was pretty much weeded out by the time I got there. I was just wondering about the timeline on that?
 
Kristin:  Yes, it's going to overlap with the pandemic, so it was right before -- I would have to go back and look. But you're correct. We don't have any dogs going out as working guides that have the double recessive for Stargardt's at this point in time. So it was in the 2019, 2020 time frame. And we made the decision to, once we found out about that, to not continue on the guide dog track for any dog that carried the double recessive, which was -- again, it was a population hit for us that lined up right with the population hit with the pandemic, which is also a reason for the lower dog numbers and our need to correct for that. But we did, with those dogs, look for other careers for them where the Stargardt's was not -- like canine buddy, any of the other service dogs that could use those dogs. Yeah.

Joanie:  Yeah. That was going to be my next question. Thank you. 

Deb:  All right. We will try the person who identifies as Guide Dogs again one more time, and you'll need to unmute. 
Unidentified:  Yes, I have a question. Can you explain what field managers do? Because I've had very few interactions with mine, and I'm on my third dog now, and I didn't even know until a few weeks ago and never got the email apparently that went out, but I've since received it. I've never hardly talked to my field managers. 

Kristin:  Sure. What I can say is that the United States and Canada is broken up into geographic regions, and we have field service managers located throughout those areas. A lot of places we send instructors out to do the follow up for weather reasons and travel reasons and the lineup. So the last time we did a client panel and talked about this, it was half the clients were like, "Yep, I've seen my field service manager for all of my visits, and I get really great service." And the other half of the client -- well, the other half of the clients said, "I've never seen my field service manager. I'm always visited by an instructor, and I get fabulous service." So they basically would be the ones that would be building the trip for the instructors that are going out to a smaller area in their zone to provide the follow up services. And then our support center folks are often the ones who are doing the telephonic communications. 

Unidentified:  Well, thank you. I appreciate that information. 

Kristin:  You got it. 

Deb:  Andrew asks, "If a guide dog retires does the person taking them as the retired dog also qualify for the veterinary stipend?"

Kristin:  Only if they are a family member of the grad. If they are a member of the public or if it's the puppy raiser, they don't. What I will say, though, is if it's an older dog and let's say that it has some medical conditions, we do have mechanisms in place to provide some financial support. But they are not covered under the same VFA program where they can call in and have ongoing conversations. 

Deb:  Leonard asks, "Where does GDB's breeding stock come from?"

Kristin:  It is ours. So we've had our own breeding population forever, basically, for the entirety of Guide Dogs for the Blind. You start small and build from there. Like I said, we work with other guide dog schools and service dog organizations to build that up. We share often with Canine Companions for Independence. We share internationally so that we can bring in some stock from across the world. And we work a lot with Guide Dogs of America, Guiding Eyes for the Blind. And then we just -- it's ours. We keep replenishing and then make sure that we bring in enough new outside of our lines to keep it clean.
 
Deb:  It's the top of the hour, but we do have two or three more hands. Are we able to take two or three more hands?

Kristin:  Sure.
 
Deb:  All right. Kenny. 

Kenny:  Oh, good evening. I had a couple of questions. My first question is y'all mentioned playing music. Is that also in the kennels and what kind? My second question is someone mentioned about having the guides walk on the right versus the left. Is that new standard, or is that just per client request or need and so forth? Thank you. 

Kristin:  Absolutely. So we actually do play music in our training kennels, and we vary it. So sometimes I'll walk in there and it's classical, and sometimes I'll walk in there and it's country or it's pop, but it depends on the time of day and what they're looking for in terms of relaxing the dogs. Our training kennels also use scent enrichment. Sometimes you walk in, it smells like vanilla or maple syrup, as well as a bunch of different food enrichments to keep the dogs comfortable and feeling good. 

The right side is very few and far between, and it is when it is determined that the client is unable to utilize a dog on the standard left hand side. So it can be a balance reason. It can be a lack of the use of the left arm. It can be that there is no left arm. It just depends. And so if we're out working with a client on the home interview and doing the Juno portion of that to see and it looks like the right side would be better, we can do that or sometimes it's just very, very clear. I will say that the numbers is there's maybe two or three a year, and I think I'm being generous with that number. 

Deb:  Someone from the 619 area code. 

Frank:  Hi, this is Frank. And my question is what is the percentage of graduated dogs versus the dogs that are bred? Is it 10 percent of all dogs bred or what is the percentage? I'm just curious. I know it varies but in general. 

Kristin:  Yeah. That's -- again, statistics where you -- how you decide to say that. So if we take a period of time and we say, okay, we bred this number of dogs, how many of them became guide dogs? Or for us it would be how many of them became guide dogs and breeders, because those are successes for us. So I'm going to answer in about the 40 percent range. It ebbs and it flows. But if I had to go across the historical time period, it's in the 40, 40 to 45 percent range.
 
Deb:  We're going to take two more questions. Latice, one of them is not you, because you've already had one. Maria.

Maria:  Hi. I'm Maria from Montreal, Canada. I have two questions. First one is you didn't speak about the dogs being spayed or neutered. Are they spayed or neutered before they go to the puppy trainers or while they are at puppy trainers? And my other question is about the name. You had mentioned that you don't use the same name of a guide dog that's already in use, that's being used. I have a guide dog. My current guide dog is from Canadian Guide Dogs for the Blind, but he was a share from California. He's a black lab. And when I went through the list of the puppies that are being trained, there's a dog with the same name as mine. So I don't know if it's because he's in Canada or trained at another school. 

Kristin:  Yeah, I mean, we would not be able to make sure that we didn't name what other schools name. So we do our absolute best within our own graduate base to not have repeat names. I'm going to say that it's 99 percent successful. I know that occasionally one slips through or we have a Carrie, C-A-R-R-I-E, and a Kerry, K-E-R-R-Y, technically different names, but our ideal is that we stay away from that as well. 

To your question about the spays and neuters, a lot of times we know we're not going to keep that dog intact for breeding purposes the minute they're born. And so they go out into their puppy homes, and those raisers know they're going to be spaying or neutering those dogs when they are of age. Other times we leave the dogs out and they grow up intact and something occurs and the raisers say, "I think this dog would do better if we neutered him." And we can make that decision. A certain percentage of dogs come back in for formal training intact so that breeding can make a decision about selecting them or not. Our perfect, perfect setup is any dog coming in for training has already been spayed or neutered so that our instructors can get started right away on day one. 

Maria:  Thank you. 

Deb:  Michelle.

Michelle:  Hi. I have two questions as well. One question is that you were talking about the dogs that are in foster care and going through training. And if that is the case, if a client gets one of those dogs, do you let them know that that was the situation so that they know that the dog doesn't do well in kennel situations should that need arise in the future? And my other question is, do you do any kind of -- I seem to recall hearing a talk at one point in a guide dog users group about that there are some genetics related to or possible genetics related to dogs that are scared of thunder. And do you guys do any kind of screening for that? 

Kristin:  Okay, I'll go with the thunder one first. My guess is we do have estimated breeding values for environmental sensitivity or fear-based behaviors. Tied directly to thunderstorms? No. It does not get that specific. It's more in terms of overarching temperament of the dog. Thunder is a really, really hard one to screen for. Right. Because if the dogs aren't raised somewhere where there's thunder, we can't really create that same situation. 

So it's really quite challenging when we know a client has had -- and in their dog -- a negative experience, and they're like, "My next dog absolutely has to be sound temperamentally with thunder." Well, what we're going to do is look for the soundest dog we can. But I can almost guarantee you we will not have proofed them out with thunder. It will have to be something else that's big and loud and kind of the collective whole package of that dog. 

With regards to the foster care question, we're pretty upfront. There's no reason for us not to share that information that that dog did better in the foster care home. And to be honest with you, our foster care providers oftentimes like to come to graduation, and they like to meet the client and have shared conversation and all of that. So, yes. 

What I would also say is just because a dog struggled in the kennel environment at one point in training and we made the decision to put them in foster care does not mean after they've learned what they need to learn that they wouldn't do okay for a short boarding stint in a kennel. They are two very, very different expectations on an animal. And I don't necessarily think that they line up at all. 

Michelle:  Okay. Thank you very much. 

Kristin:  You're welcome. 

Deb:  And we had one last question in the chat that relates to if the person's dog, first dog, had been diagnosed with a major medical problem during training and was replaced with another dog, what happens to that first dog that's not going to be medically fit to go out? 

Kristin:  If they're not medically fit to go out as a guide dog, then we would take a look at whether or not they were appropriate for canine buddy. Maybe it's something that doesn't impact their ability to be a great companion for somebody. So we would look at that. If that was not a career path for them, we would look with our community partners and see if that --  but again, if it's a major medical thing, I'm going to wager most of the time that's going to knock that dog out of any form of service. In which case they become a career change that our puppy raisers can take back if they would like, or they can place it with friends or family, or our dog placement team will look for the best general public adoption for that dog. And if that medical condition is significant, then again, we have the financial supports in place to provide support to a family if the medical condition would be a barrier to them finding their future forever home. 

Deb:  Yeah. Especially for a younger dog like that. That would be big. All right. That does the questions and answers. 

Kelly:  Okay. Can you hear me? 

Deb:  Yeah. You're good. 

Kelly:  Okay. I want to say thank you so much, Kristin. You are fabulous. What a great session. And we had over 100 people on this call, and that is phenomenal. Thank you so much. Your knowledge and understanding of the process is so valuable to all of us who are users. And I want to thank you very much for your time and your energy and your willingness to work with us to help us understand what we can't see.
 
Kristin:  It was my pleasure, Kelly, and I appreciate the invite to come and spend some time with everybody today. And I appreciate the excellent questions at the end. And anytime, basically, let me know. 

Kelly:  Well, thank you, everybody. Thank you. Kristin, you rock. 

Kristin:  Thank you. All right. Take care, everybody. 

Kelly:  Take care. 

Deb:  All right.

Kelly:  Bye. Thank you.

Amy:  Thanks, Deb. 

[End of Recording]