Sequoia is a beautiful service dog in training who was raised an initially trained by the one and only Rachel Denton. His focused energy amazes me, but after watching him and Rachel together, I gathered that Rachel is so focused on maneuvering through crowds of excited people while maintaining the task at hand, and that is truly where Sequoia gets his focus from. 

Service dogs go through a long process of being raised by volunteer puppy raisers, trained the basics by a volunteer puppy raiser, advanced training and further socialization, and are paired with a disabled person only when their training is complete. While Rachel is a volunteer puppy raiser, the work she puts in to preparing the dogs she raises for service is far above and beyond the basics.

I have had the privilege of watching Sequoia transform from puppy into his advanced training stages and I am so very excited for the companion he will be for a lucky person one day! I had the honor of capturing some of his process while Rachel walked him through initial training and when she first handed his leash over for his advanced training and socialization period. What a beautiful team! 

Sequoia, you have a beautiful and bright future! Keep up the amazing work, Rachel!