No not right away, No Met is not retiring, Yes Met is OK and continuing to improve by leaps and bounds aesthetically and gradually in working form. Smiles If everything works out the way I hope it will, I have made the decision that next year I am going to get a puppy if the momma cooperates and breeds LOL Last year she refused so this one right now is her very first litter. It is with the breeder who is a friend of mine who I have said I always want Met's successor to come from. She has a beautiful Red and White BC with four beautiful puppies right now. She is proving to be a very good mamma. If there was not so much in my life right now- so much pain emotionally, so much I need to figure out between now and puppy time- I could have one soon but I won't do that to me or to Met or even to the puppy. After losing Nanook in January and Emma in February we just need a break from things... I am trying to stay busy and having this *hope* for next year- well it helps me do just that. I am nervous about starting with such a young pup. Met was 6 months old when I got him with the damage to his health already done months before. This will be a HEALTHY puppy Grin I do suspect I am going to need to move to do this so hence another reason why I need that year. Gotta save to be able to do that.... Since I have Section 8 though my subsidy can go with me. I do believe I may be required to stay put through January though. Even if they would allow me the puppy here, I am not so sure I would want the pressure of all the people who think its gonna be another joke like the other gal who had a puppy here before... I don't want to feel pressured to speed up training to prove I know how to do things. I am a bit nervous about certain aspects. Mostly early puppyhood stuff and visual ones. I trained Met to guide as my vision was deteriorating. I knew my area like the back of my hand (and in a move I won't necessarily know that) I was able to know more what I wanted and be able to point these things out with Met because of the timing of the earlier part of his guide training. I won't have that luxury this time. I can always hope it will have as good instincts as Met but... I know I can't expect it to be a bed of roses from the start to the finish. I could really use hearing from people who have trained from puppyhood themselves. Or if anyone knows of a really good puppy book that deals with all the neat essentials like the Urban Puppy kit does- that does not seem like something I could easily scan. Maybe someone here has this or knows about it though enough to know if that is a possibility before I spend $35 bucks. They want $15 just to ship it! I know I will need to make a prioritization of the most important things to train and when to train them in terms of the safety of the pup as well. Like I know I can teach the words for guiding just as we walk along but I certainly won't be strapping on a harness at 6 months of age and expecting the pup to guide me. I hope Met is still working in a year to get me through those earlier puppy growth times and even keep it happy when I am pooped out, but I may find I am gonna want that puppy trained more than ever by then... Smile OK so a lot can happen in a year but this is the goal.... Karyn and Met