JENNIFER BOYLE AND THE MIRA Foundation

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MIRA pursues this objective: to bring greater autonomy to handicapped people and to facilitate their social integration by providing them with dogs that have been fully trained to accommodate each individual's needs of adaptation and rehabilitation.

I have been working with MIRA for over 3 years now fostering dogs for the first part of their MIRA training in which they live, work and play with myself and my family everywhere we go. The purpose of this first stage of training is to acclimatize the dogs from the time they are very young pups to being around humans in all the places they may go and with what would normally be all the natural distractions of sights, sounds and smells that go along with it. They have to learn to ignore these distractions.

(Click on any picture below for a larger image)

My first MIRA dog was Woogie, a black Lab. Woogie left me to go for her second stage training in 2005 and was placecd as a seeing eye dog with her permanent owner in October of 2006.

Next came Cacouna, a Lab/Bernes mix. I was in the early days of working with Cacouna when I joined Bark Busters. Cacouna was a tough nut to crack. We returned her to MIRA in May of 2007, but she wasn't homed permanently until she recently was matched as a seeing eye dog for Pierrette from Quebec City.

We were invited to a reunion with Cacouna as she moved on to her new home and new duties with her permanent companion Pierrette.

Spandex was next, another Lab/Bernes mix. Spandex went back to Mira in October of 2008 (about a month ago as I write) and will also become a seeing eye dog.

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Our newest acquisition is Jello, yet another Lab/Bernes mix. Look for additions to this story as time goes on.

In December of 2009 Jello finished his fostering and has now gone back to MIRA to begin his actual companion dog training. I sure miss my buddy Jello, but...

My newest addition is Miles, a pure Lab. I will be working to help Miles move from a normal puppy to a companion candidate over the next several months.