Zerlina

Zerlina was bred to be a seeing eye dog at Guide Dogs for the Blind (GDB) in San Rafael, CA. She was born in 2009. At GDB, each litter of puppies is assigned a letter of the alphabet. Zerlina was born into a "Z" litter. One of the employees at the time was given the opportunity to name one of the puppies. This person happened to be very into opera, and chose the name "Zerlina" from the Mozart opera Don Giovani. Not all dogs are meant to be seeing eye dogs though, and when Zerlina was around one and a half years old they decided she was too rowdy to be a working dog. She became what's known as a "career change" dog, and was adopted out into the community. GDB estimates that by the time a dog is designated a career change dog, $50,000 has been spent on their training and medical care. Needless to say, we are very lucky to have her in our family.