Wishbone's Retirement

Monday, January 23rd, the Liberty area Paws members met to honor Wishbone and his handler Kay Coffey. WIshbone and Kay have been serving in Paws for three years. As Wishbone is approaching 16 years young and his vitality is not that of a puppy, please joints are a bit ache, Kay has courageously decided it was time for Wishbone to retire.

We were honored that members of the Lions Club (Kay is a Lion) joined us for the presentation. In his honor a copy of the 1955 republication of the original 1938 version of Lassie Come Home is being placed in the children's section of the Liberty Library where Wishbone served in summer READ programs. Wishbone will paw-toe-graph this volume.

Janeen Schnieder presented Kay with a proclamation honoring Wishbone which brought tears to most of our eyes, then she and Kay released one white dove in honor of Wishbone and this bird was followed by the rest of the flock representing those of us to support Kay and Wishbone.

Kay, herself, is not retiring. Rather she is now serving as the Paws Librarian and will be using one of the other dogs in the group to continue her service until she finds the just right dog to join her.