I’m not sure who is the strangest: dogs or dog people.  Dogs do things we’ll never understand, but dog people speak to their pets in baby talk, share their beds with them and refer to themselves as “mommy” and “daddy.”

So Kaleigh is no worse than your average human, even if she was a reluctant mother and is a deceptively friendly brood bitch.

Mostly Labrador (I believe she is 7/8 Lab and 1/8 golden retriever), she gave birth to three litters of pups for Canine Companions for Independence (CCI), about which I will write more eventually.  And while the success rate for CCI puppies is only about 33 percent, more than half of Kaleigh’s pups went on to graduate and be placed as service dogs with paraplegics, quadraplegics, hearing-impaired persons and the like.

But Kaleigh didn’t take well to the mothering thing.  She had little interest in the birthing process (her third litter had to be delivered by C-section)  and even less interest in nursing her pups.  She seemed happy when each of her litters were turned in to CCI at eight weeks.

The program works like this: Some people become “breeder caretakers,” which means that they care for the bitch, take her back to CCI’s Santa Rosa, California, campus to be bred when she is in heat, bring her back home, whelp the puppies, raise the pups for eight weeks and then turn them in.  Another stable of dog lovers is lined up to be “puppy raisers” for about 14 to 16 months, during which time they socialize the dog, take it to puppy classes and teach it all of the basic commands.

After puppy raising, the dogs are again turned back in to CCI where those who haven’t washed out go through a rigorous training program before finally being placed with a handicapped person.

A couple of times a year, CCI hosts a gathering of its volunteers and their dogs – usually as a fund-raiser.  (It’s not enough that we raise their dogs, buy the food and pay most of the vet bills, but they hope we’ll pay for the privilege.)  We were at one such gathering when Marianne spotted the puppy raisers for one of Kaleigh’s pups and wanted the two dogs to get together again to relive old times, or some such thing.

Kaleigh dutifully sniffed at her son, feigned disinterest and then lunged.  When they were separated, we found that the poor son had suffered a ripped eyelid.  So his raisers set off for the 24-hour vet clinic just a few miles away.  Marianne and I followed about ten minutes later to find out if the dog was OK and to offer to pay the vet bill.

When we got to the clinic, everybody was in high spirits.  The dog’s injury wasn’t serious, but that would not have accounted for all the jollity.

It seems that when the veterinary technician was checking them in, the puppy raisers explained that the dog’s mother had bitten it.  They were shown into an examination room and when the vet came in, his first words to the wife were “You bit your dog???”