When Jeff and Cindy Scharfen’s daughter Misa was 10 years old, she wanted a puppy. What could be more normal? But sometimes, even with puppies, “Man plans, God laughs,” as the Yiddish proverb states. Cindy’s parents had recently received a non-qualifying, “career changed” guide dog as a gift from a friend, and when Misa, her brother James, Jeff, and Cindy saw the dog, it seemed like a wonderful idea to get a puppy that they could raise as a guide dog for the blind. So they did. It was Christmas in the year 2000, and the puppy’s name was Charleston. They lived in Santa Rosa, California, north of San Francisco. Cindy was busy as a doctor of radiation oncology, and Jeff was just leaving a career in the law and a term as the executive director for the Catholic Community Foundation. They had no idea how difficult and time-consuming it …