They were all Labs.
I was partnered up with three different guide dogs. All were yellow labs. Most were just about blond or creamy white. But boy could they shed.
My first guide was named Axle. He was about 20 or 21 months when I started working with him. He was trained first by a little 4-H girl who worked in a group of 4-Hers. They all worked on obedience training. Sit, stay, down, etc. Then after eight or ten months the dogs were sent back to the guide dog school in San Rafael for advanced guide training.
One thing for certain they did NOT train them to eat chocolate candy. Supposedly chocolate is almost like poison for most dogs. Can quickly empty out their stomachs.
Never the less, on one occasion we visiting my folks in southern California. Axle was left in a back bedroom with our luggage. Luggage we thought was locked. In one small suitcase was a fully wrapped one pound box of See’s candy. One pound of “Nuts and Chews.” My favorite.
Axle’s nose was telling him there is something most delicious in one of those flight bags.
But to make a long story a bit shorter, when we got back from a short trip to somewhere, we walked in the back bedroom. So the one luggage bag fully open, the one-pound box of See’s was completely unwrapped, and every morsel was eaten. Gone. Eaten by a pooch who pretended to not know what was going on. ‘Oh hey, what happened here,’ he might had thought.
But anyway, that evening and as usual Axle was asleep on the floor by my bed. Then suddenly and about 2-AM Axle nudged my elbow with his very wet nose. At that moment and after collecting my thoughts, I knew what that wet nose meant.
I leashed him up and quickly took Axle out the back door and out on the nearby grass and let him go. And go he went. Woosh. It all came out. Like an open faucet flowing used chocolate. It was not a pretty sight. Never mind the smell.