Puppy Preppers : Volunteers: For children helping to raise young guide dogs, the hardest part is saying goodby.

From the minute Erica Anderson adopted a yellow puppy named Dijon, the 12-year-old wondered how she would muster the courage to give the Labrador retriever away.

Erica knows that when Dijon turns 15 months old in February, she will have to give up the velvety, floppy-eared companion that likes to chew on her arm.

Dijon will go to Guide Dogs for the Blind, a national organization based in San Rafael that will complete the canine’s training as a guide dog.

“I know I will be really, really sad,” Erica said. “But I will be happy too. . . . What I really like is knowing that I might be able to help a blind person.”

Erica, who lives in Thousand Oaks, is one of 11 Ventura County youths raising puppies this year for the nonprofit group. In the last 53 years, Guide Dogs for the Blind has has paired dogs with 7,500 blind people across the United States and Canada.

Born at the organization’s Northern California compound, guide dog puppies are placed in the homes of 4-H families when the canines are 3 months old. Youths teach the pups basic obedience skills and expose them to surroundings they might encounter as adult guide dogs.

“We could not exist without them,” Deborah Henderson, who works for the organization, said of the 4-H members. “We want them to expose the dogs to everything and anything.”

Guide Dogs for the Blind has 940 active puppy trainers--mostly youths--raising dogs in 11 western states, Henderson said. Although few Ventura County youths have participated in the program, the numbers are growing.

Only two youths reared guide dog puppies last year through local 4-H groups. But in addition to the 11 students raising dogs now, six others are on a waiting list, said 4-H leader Liz Harward.

“Of all the projects, this is the most rewarding,” she said. Rather than raise livestock bound only for the county fair, youths in her 4-H group are training animals for a more noble purpose: to become protective eyes for people who are blind.

Driven by a sense of philanthropy and a curiosity about dogs, Darcie Fuess, a 16-year-old from Newbury Park, decided to adopt a puppy through Guide Dogs.

Before Fuess took on Mohawk, an energetic 5-month-old black Labrador retriever, her pet experience was limited to rabbits and cats.

“It’s not like rabbit--they’re dumb,” Darcie said, rubbing her dog’s dark, coarse hair. “He’s just really affectionate. He doesn’t have any major problems.”

There have been a few minor problems, however--that embarrassing incident in Home Depot, for instance, where Mohawk relieved himself on the hardware store floor.

“It was his only accident,” Darcie said defensively. “It was on a cement floor.”

Though they are bound for a serious profession as guide dogs, at this point in their training, puppies’ desires are difficult to control.

During a walk in Newbury Park last week, Mohawk went into a leash-pulling barking frenzy when he caught sight of a giant, yellow lawn mower. “He wanted to go play with it,” Darcie said.

But alien lawn mowers are exactly what the young dogs need to confront, puppy raisers say.

“It is real important at this age for the kids to take them someplace where there are lots of distractions,” Harward said. In two weeks, she will lead the 4-H group on a field trip to one of the east county’s best sources of distraction: The Oaks mall.

Erica says she takes Dijon almost everywhere she goes--the park, the drugstore, the library--anyplace that will help her 4-month-old dog get used to different environments.

“The kids really get them used to going into stores, restaurants--anywhere a blind person may be going,” Harward said. “Who knows what a guide dog is going to run across?”

Store owners are not always accommodating.

Rachelle Gould, 14, is raising her second guide dog this year. When the Camarillo teen-ager tried to take Ness, her first puppy, into a Bay Area restaurant last year, the maitre d’ refused to let the golden retriever enter--even after Rachelle displayed his guide dog identification card.

But locally, the puppy raisers have encountered no problems. Store clerks in Sav-On Drugs in Thousand Oaks, for instance, pay no attention to Dijon, who likes to sniff her way down the aisles, licking the floor as she goes.

Although Erica has not taken Dijon to school yet, she plans to once the dog is older. “She’s really loving, and she’s got a good personality,” Erica said.

To become a puppy raiser, 4-H members must pass a home inspection and closely follow strict rules established by Guide Dogs, one of 11 organizations nationwide that trains dogs to accompany blind people.

Puppies must sleep in crates at night and cannot be left unsupervised for more than four hours.

When puppies are “working,” being walked or handled by their owner, they must wear a leash and thin green coats designed to acclimate the dogs to harnesses they will eventually wear as guide dogs.

Puppies can have chew toys, but for safety reasons balls are absolutely forbidden--a crushing blow for retrievers. But according to Harward: “Dogs that are real serious about their work and are real responsible overcome those tendencies.”

“They are not always on duty,” she adds. “They can be dogs at home.”

Puppy raisers say that abiding by those stiff regulations is not the difficult part. The really tough part is giving up the animal.

“Knowing the entire time you have the dog that you have to let go” is the sad part, Rachelle said. She should know.

With teary eyes last year, Rachelle gave Ness back to the San Rafael school. “It was really hard,” she said. “I cried for hours.”

This year, she will do the same with her new puppy, Kilroy, a 4-month-old German shepherd.

Not all puppies finish guide dog school. Many are rejected for behavioral and health problems, such as hip dysplasia. When that happens, puppy raisers have the option to take the dog back.

The 4-H members who usher dogs along in the early months are invited to the San Rafael graduation ceremony held for the dogs who make it through the final five months of training.

It is the final goodby, because the puppy raiser presents the guide dog to its new blind owner.

“The dog looks back,” Harward said, remembering her own experience. “And at that point, it is not your dog anymore.”