Meet Joy, originally uploaded by pmarkham.

Joy is a Labrador Retriever and a retired Helping Paws service dog. She worked for over seven years for my friend Kathy and was just retired this week. You may be wondering why such a beautiful dog is being retired. Joy has developed a medical condition called Sudden Acquired Retinal Degeneration Syndrome or SARDS. The result of this is that she has gone completely blind almost overnight. She has visited several specialists in Minnesota and Iowa, but it appears that her vision loss is permanent.

I’ve know Joy since she was a young dog and I’ve know Kathy for nearly as long. My wife and I have offered to have Joy come and live at our house for the rest of her years. We love labs and already have one other blind animal (Helen the kitten), so our house it pretty well set up already. We had Joy with us this past weekend to start the transition for both Kathy and Joy. She fit right in to our household and was literally a joy to have around.

I feel grateful that my wife and I are in a position to be able to help Kathy and Joy. They are both amazing!