Guide dog graduates, heads for Canada

Hudson’s Bay — Kaya, once a guide-dog-in-training, has made it to the big time. Mike Githens, the leader of pretraining club Guiding Eyes of Clark County, reports that the pooch photographed lying beside his desk for an April Columbian story has become an official guide dog for Jacquie, who lives in the other Vancouver to the north. “It’s a pretty darned neat thing, and I’m sure proud of Kaya,” Githens wrote in an email. “Statistically, only about half of the puppies we raise end up as guide dogs.” Githens formally presented Kaya to Jacquie on Nov. 3 at a public graduation ceremony at Guide Dogs for the Blind in Boring, Ore. To learn more about Guiding Eyes of Clark County, visit http://www.geocc.org.