If you haven’t had your daily dose of cuteness … there you go … though what you see in that clip is also very serious business! Ruth Oldham of West Seattle See Dogs invited us to drop by the Seattle Police Mounted Patrol‘s headquarters at Westcrest Park on Sunday afternoon as her group and two others from around the region had a special visit. They brought guide-dogs-in-training to get a good look at, and sniff of, Tiger the SPD horse. As we learned while listening to the discussion, future guide dogs need to be exposed to all sorts of circumstances and characters, because you never know what they will have to help their people deal with.

Ruth explains, “Once a month or more, in addition to our regular meetings, puppy-raising clubs have an “outing” to provide their puppies with new experiences. Working guide dogs may encounter mounted police and horse-drawn carriages in the course of their day and so the Seattle Police Department has been generous in providing the opportunity over the years for our puppies to go ‘nose to nose; and greet their horses and to answer questions.”

The puppy-raising clubs that joined WS See Dogs on Sunday are Guide Puppies of Seattle and Bellevue-based For Your Eyes Only. Interested in volunteering to raise a guide puppy for a year? West Seattle See Dogs’ next meeting is one week from tonight, Monday, June 14, at Merrill Gardens-Admiral Heights (WSB sponsor), 6:30 pm, just show up!