Canine Companions for Independence - Luna

When I met Luna, she was a CCI puppy in training who as getting ready to go into an intense training program.  Her mom (volunteer puppy raiser) really wanted to capture Luna, Kastner (their other CCI puppy in training) and Tex, their family pet, together before Luna’s big departure.

It’s not every day that I get to photograph a service dog in training - let alone two of them, and I loved every minute of it.  The more I learned about CCI and the volunteer puppy raising program the more I was taken aback by the level of dedication and complete selflessness of their volunteers.  Could you imagine raising a puppy as part of your family and then giving them up for the greater good, so they can help someone who needs them?  It would be a flood of emotions - simultaneous joy, sadness, beaming with pride, heart wrenching...

Luna’s puppy raiser mom recently shared that she has flown through her intense training program and will be heading to Santa Rosa, California next week to begin advanced training to become a service dog for someone who is hearing impaired!!  How incredible is that?  Luna was actually on the news recently - you can see her showing off some of her new skills here.

I feel so blessed to have been able to meet Luna and her family and have such deep respect for these puppy raisers and the service dogs they raise!  They are all angels in my eyes.  Wishing Luna nothing but the very best on the next leg of her journey!  Someone out there is going to be SO lucky to get to share their life with Luna.  xo

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The Canine Companions for Independence 2015 service dog calendar is now available for purchase and I had the honor of capturing the image of the gorgeous black lab June calendar girl, Luna V!  CCI is a truly amazing non-profit organization that places highly trained service dogs completely free of charge .  All proceeds from the calendar sales will go directly to help pair their service dogs with some pretty wonderful people.  You can purchase your 2015 calendar here!