When Mandy (a.k.a. Tandy) arrived at Santa Rosa, she was reunited with her six littermates, the "T" dogs below. All her littermates made it to the second semester of training at CCI headquarters, which means they were a truly outstanding bunch of pups.
Mandy did not have such an easy time of it. At the end of the first semester Mandy expressed a strong desire to leave the program. She got her wish and was released from the program. The day I was notified was definitely a bad day for me, since I felt I had failed to prepare her for advanced training. It was also one of the best days of my life, since she was offered to me to be my pet.
The rest of her littermates posed for the class picture taken January 1998. I wanted her to be in it, so I "pasted" her picture in a convenient space between her pal Ponte and her brother Tamago.
I went to Santa Rosa to get Mandy back. We decided to make the best of it
by spending a couple of days sightseeing in California before returning to
Maryland.
