Blogging about life in Minnesota, raising our six kids with Down syndrome while battling Breast Cancer.

Be the kind of woman that when your feet hit the floor in the morning the devil says, "Oh shit! She's up!"

Friday, October 09, 2009

A little education

So, a family contacted me about puppies. They had applied to purchase a puppy from another breeder, who turned them down BECAUSE their son has Down syndrome.

Yeah, I was speechless too.

And then I was angry. Apparently this breeder had sold a puppy to a family with a child who had autism, and because THAT child was aggressive with the puppy she has decided every other child with Autism (or DS) must be as well. Grrrrrrrrrrrrr

Now, I realize it wasn't YOU, my readers, who made those assumptions, but since it's DS awareness month, I decided to post these old videos of Angela with the dogs.

The first is when she was 10. Our puppy are matched with their families at about 6 weeks old. Once they're matched the family can name the puppy and we try to call them by name whenever handling them. Many of the families live out of state, so we post videos on our puppy website so they can see their puppies!


This next one is when Angela was 9, taking a Jr. Handler class. She was the youngest
in the class.




This last one is when Angela was 11, taking a Jr. agility class with her dog Dudley. This was her first time ever in the agility ring!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Who is that trainer in bare feet...oh, right...me.

Just wanted to say that Angela was the most confident child in that class. She did not let her dog push her around and often gave the other Jr. Handlers a few tips.

She would put Dudley in a down and walk ALL the way across the room. None of the other kids would let go of the leash.

Sorry that family got denied a puppy because of such a silly reason. Aggressive children...yes, that's a reason to say no. Autism, DS, not a good reason.

JennyH said...

Wow- I'm shocked!