Day 65 - Power to the Puppies!

In her final week of this mini phase of chemo, Anna is still feeling great.  We are amazed and so happy for her phenomenal energy level and happy smiles :)

To help her further her happiness, we were lucky enough to bring to the Guiding Eyes for The Blind puppy development center in Westchester, NY.  It is here where hundreds and hundreds of puppies are born each year in hopes to one day be a seeing eye dog.  For some back knowledge, we were told that 60% of all of the puppies born at Guiding Eyes will become a service dog, but only 40% of those puppies will become Guiding Eye dogs.  Aside from the dogs being the cutest thing ever, they have a huge responsibility.  These dogs are trained to have the ability to look and make a decision for their owners life.  For example they have the ability to safely walk their owner across 5th Ave in NYC.  Pretty impressive!  Ok back to the cuteness :-)

Anna LOVES puppies and just after she was Diagnosed I reached out to a great friend at work who manages the Pepsico relationship with Guiding Eyes to see if one day we could bring Anna to see the pups!  She made it happen and today we took her. We wanted to surprise her, so we told her we were going on "ride" just to get out of the house.  She really didn't like that.

~35 minutes later we arrived.  Anna was so excited and smiled from ear to ear.  She said "Hurry Hurry!!! Keep driving!!"

We entered and were greeted by Sue VP of Marketing who gave us a great tour.  Anna fell in love with the puppies.  Anna held and messaged a litter of pups that were born on christmas eve, just about 3 weeks old.  They were doing a great job of sleeping and their eyes hadn't opened yet.  It was so precious to see her so happy to hold these puppies. They were sooooooooo cute.  Anna fell in love with "Sugar"

Anna with Sugar - 3 Weeks Old

Loving every minute of this!!

Sugar with a big Yawn!!!

Hadley 5 weeks and ready to start his training journey

Sugar and her liter mates hard at sleep!

Puppy Van!!

I have to extend a giant thank you to a my work colleague for coordinating this and for PepsiCo for partnering and believing in a cause like this.  #821ForAnna