Such Sweet Sorrow

As a party, it’s a poop. About 70 people (half of them with dogs), a table full of food and a big “Congratulations” cake. But everyone’s glum.

Scott Seomin, 33, doesn’t even look at the food. He’s too traumatized to eat, he says. This was supposed to be fun.

Seomin volunteered two years ago to raise a puppy for Guide Dogs of America, which breeds, trains and provides free dogs to assist the blind. He says he “did it because it’s such a good cause,” but also because he loves dogs and didn’t have one of his own--he didn’t want to leave one locked in his condo all day while he worked.

Guide dogs in training are a different matter, though. They go everywhere their humans go. With their little yellow official guide-dog vests, they are welcome in restaurants, malls, trains, planes, offices, gyms. . . . Seomin would never have to leave this pooch home alone.

“In August ‘97,” he recalls, “I picked up this tiny black fur ball, 7 weeks old. I spoiled him rotten, took him to puppy kindergarten class, and he quickly learned the basic stuff. These dogs have great lineage, they’re super-smart and sweet,” he continues with near-parental pride. “He was house-trained by 9 weeks old. And he’s only barked three times in two years.” Seomin named the pup Vesper, which means evening prayer.

Every day he and the baby black Lab would awake together, eat, take a walk, hop in the car and go to work (“Vesper always took the same spot near my desk”). After work, they’d play, go to the market, the cleaners and any social events on Seomin’s calendar. “For two years, we were never more than a few steps apart,” Seomin says. “He was part of me.”

A former press director for TV’s “Entertainment Tonight” and current press director of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, Seomin is a sensible person. He thought he understood thoroughly when Guide Dog of America officials told him at the start: “You are only a foster dad for this pup. When he is 2 years old, you must bring him back.”

But Seomin hadn’t counted on falling in love.

Now, on a sunny, wind-swept Saturday, the two will part. This “celebratory” luncheon at the dog group’s headquarters in Sylmar is meant to salute the volunteer foster dads and moms for their jobs well done. Then, Vesper and the others dogs will go back to the group’s kennels, where the training will be finished by experts, and they will be teamed with the blind people with whom they will go home to spend the rest of their working lives.

It’s too much for Seomin to contemplate.

“What if he gets some old person who lives in a tiny apartment and never takes him out? What if he has no fun? What if. . . .” Seomin is increasingly distraught, as are the eight friends who have come to help him through.

The head of puppy training for the group is prepared for all this.

After lunch, Louise Henderson takes the podium, thanks the volunteers, looks around and acknowledges the sadness she sees. “I know this is tough,” she says, “especially for those of you doing this for the first time. You’ll feel lonely at first, and you’ll miss the dogs you’ve raised.”

Seomin raises his hand. “Yes, but how will it be for the dogs?”

“It will be the same for them,” Henderson replies. “Your dog will miss you. He will wonder where you went. He won’t understand why you’re gone. He’ll ask himself why.”

Seomin, fairly stoic until now, puts his head in his hands and sobs.

Other volunteers--even those who have been raising puppies for the group for years--look equally undone.

Soon, blind people from all over America will be brought to the Guide Dog of America headquarters, where they will live cost-free for a month while they and their dogs become fully attuned to each other. Then, Seomin and the other volunteers will be invited to a graduation ceremony, where the puppies’ old and new masters will meet.

One volunteer asks whether all the dogs will be placed. “Probably not,” Henderson says. Some will be found to have physical or temperamental flaws that make them unsuitable. It could be something as simple as being too social--trying to meet and lick every person they see. Or being distracted too easily by cats and birds. “If despite all our training, the animal still can’t resist,” Henderson says, “we have to rule him out as a guide dog.”

Seomin brightens. He knows that if Vesper fails the course, Seomin has first dibs on taking him back. He crosses his fingers and lifts them high in the air. But then he looks sheepish and recants: “I want him to pass the tests. I want him to succeed at his work.”

For pups who fail and whose foster parents cannot take them back, there is a four-year waiting list of sighted people who want pets from the group, Henderson says. John Pettitt, president of the organization, says that’s because word has gotten out that the dogs (Labrador retrievers, golden retrievers and German shepherds) are carefully bred to be smart, gentle, healthy and strong.

“We breed them from our own dogs and follow them for life, no matter where they are sent,” Pettitt says.

The group has about 300 puppy-raisers in the Southern California area, many of whom have foster-parented dozens of pups. “Most find it tough to give the dogs back the first time around, but then they take another puppy immediately and that fills the void,” says Pettitt.

Carla and Dennis Lewis of Santa Barbara have come to the lunch with their fourth foster pup, Namo. “Sure, it’s hard to give him up,” Dennis Lewis says. “But we keep remembering how much he loves his work. Every time he sees his yellow jacket, he gets all excited and wants to go. We know he’ll love helping a blind person.”

Mary Ellen Likens of Big Bear Lake has come to Sylmar with Lakota, a shepherd who is her eighth foster pup. “I’m addicted to this job,” she says. “It’s something I can’t give up. It’s a labor of love. Each time, I try not to let it get to me when this day comes around. But it gets to me every single time.”

As the afternoon winds down, Seomin walks woefully to the kennel, surrounded by his human friends but focused only on his canine one. He says goodbye--again and again. And then he goes home, where another friend has removed all of Vesper’s possessions from sight, as per Seomin’s instructions. “I didn’t want to be faced with the memories when I got back,” Seomin says.

But a week later, he has perked up considerably.

“After all, there’s a slight chance I’ll get him back. And if not, I’ll know he’s doing what he was meant to do. In any event, I’ve just decided that the best thing for me to do is to raise another guide dog.

“I’m getting a baby German shepherd any day now. . . .”