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Come take a festive midwinter stroll BY NOELLE OLSON EDITOR
Bundle up as the sun goes down and take a walk along the newly lighted trail segment of the Lake Links Trail. The Lake Links Association Holiday Stroll and Open House will be held from 5 to 6:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 5, at the Mahtomedi District Center, 1520 Mahtomedi Avenue. There will be hot drinks, treats and a chance to enjoy Mahtomedi’s newest lighted trail. Lake Links Association Board Chair Mike Brooks is organizing the event and said people can stride out a short distance on the trail north to Streetcar Park to view the festively decorated covered bridge. The half-mile trail segment from the Mahtomedi District Center on Highway 244 north to the Dellwood/Mahtomedi city line at Dwinnell Ave-
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In and out icing on the lake A group of Mahtomedi High School graduates recently gathered for a late afternoon paddle and fishing on White Bear Lake while home from college for holiday break. Skaters and ice boaters were enjoying the glasslike conditions on much of the lake throughout December, but nearly all ice was off the lake in the days after Christmas. Ice is beginning to reappear this week on White Bear Lake and other local lakes. According to White Bear Lake ice-out historian Mike Parenteau, the lake was never totally iced over this season.
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The Depot Creek covered bridge will be lit up and ready to go at the Lake Links Association Holiday Stroll Jan. 5.
nue is now lit during the hours of darkness. Funding for this project came from the funding the Minnesota Legislature allocated for the trail segments in Mahtomedi. “There was a $1.4 million dollar grant that Mahtomedi received in 2018, and they were very SEE OPEN HOUSE, PAGE 14
Canine Inspired Change: Dogs serve as bridge to connection BY SHANNON GRANHOLM MANAGING EDITOR
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Susan Loftus and Hutch are a certified therapy dog team with Canine Inspired Change.
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Graczyk explained. This March, she will mark 13 years of sobriety. “It was messy and really terrible, and I almost lost everything, but through it all I had the constant of the dogs.” At the time, not only was Graczyk a dog trainer, but she also had certified therapy dogs of her own. She received an email from a school in Lakeland inquiring about if she
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Hutch was attacked by another dog during training. “I was so discouraged, but then I found Canine Inspired Change (CIC)” she recalled. Canine Inspired Change was founded by professional dog trainer Danielle Graczyk of Little Canada in 2010. It officially became a nonprofit organization in 2013. “Life has its ups and downs, and I found myself in a really Dark Night of the Soul in which I had to confront my drug and alcohol usage,”
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When Susan Loftus and her husband Dan lost their 15-yearold son Owen to leukemia, she made it a goal to carry on her son’s wish, to not only have a goldendoodle but to certify him as a therapy dog. Loftus, a resident of White Bear Lake, explained that her son had always wanted a goldendoodle. So, for Owen’s 15th birthday, they arranged to go meet a litter of pups. A week
later, he was diagnosed with leukemia. The family brought home Hutch, an 8-week-old goldendoodle puppy. Owen was able to spend four days with Hutch before he passed away. “While our son was having chemo, a therapy dog would come in every week,” she said. “He loved that so much he was going to have Hutch be a therapy dog when he finished his treatment — So instead, I did that for him.” Loftus got about halfway through the training when
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