Dear Kimberly...

Greetings from Bend, Oregon. My wife Sandy and I wanted to introduce ourselves to you because we are about to receive young Delight, the black lab you so generously raised for Guiding Eyes. We are very much looking forward to Delight's arrival. As I'm sure you know, she was released from the Guiding Eyes program after eight months of training.

We have had a connection to Guiding Eyes for quite a few years. Sandy is a producer for Dateline NBC and twelve years ago she produced a beautiful and moving hour-long program about Desiree Stan, a woman in upstate New York who went suddenly blind at age 44 and received her first dog, Ruth, from Guiding Eyes. Ruth was, in effect, the other central character, with Desiree, in Sandy's story. The broadcast was incredibly well received and then was rerun with updates a number of times.

Over the years, Sandy and I chose not to have a dog because our work [ for nearly thirty years I was a senior producer for NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw and with Brian Williams...and retired not quite a year ago] involved so much short-notice travel and long, often unpredictable hours when we * were* at home...it just would not have been fair to a dog. Now we are in Bend, having moved here from Los Angeles almost a year ago. Sandy still works for Dateline NBC and, happily, does not travel quite as much. And now that I am retired, I am available all the time for a dog and I fully intend to make Delight the "co-pilot" in my old Subaru everywhere I go here in central Oregon.

We thank you from afar for raising Delight. And if you have any pictures of her on your computer that you could send to us, we would be most grateful. In our turn, we would be thrilled to send you pictures of her once we get her here and she has adjusted to her new home.

We want you to know that Delight will be loved and cared for and will have the very best life we can provide for her. She will be meeting our tabby cat Rosie when she arrives...THAT should be interesting!They will work out their own "cohabitation" arrangement. Rosie is a funny cat with quite a personality. She is about six now...and she is...well, she's lazy is what she is. And she is happy to curl up next to any warm body that happens to be nearby. And since Delight will provide a delightfully warm body down closer to Rosie's own altitude, Sandy and I have visions of the two of them ending up sleeping in Delight's bed!

Thank you again for your incredibly generous gift of raising Delight. Sandy has said to me many times that one of the things that struck her most deeply during the many visits she made to Guiding Eyes was the work done by the puppy raisers...the deeply moving willingness they show to give of themselves and their time to the work of making sure that those puppies that will spend their lives in service are given the absolutely best and most loving care a young dog can receive.

We look forward to hearing from you.

All the best,

Bruce [and Sandy] Cummings

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