Our adventures as a foster dog family
It’s felt like we have been in a holding pattern for many, many weeks here. Flannery, Daisy, and Thelma have become permanent fixtures. Our whole family has adapted to life with them.
Don’t leave the kitchen gate open or ANYTHING on the floor or Continue reading “Our Trifecta of Foster Dogs”
This is a long-overdue post to catch you up on Daisy’s Diary of a Rescue.
Truly, I did not imagine I would still be writing this Diary almost six months later. But maybe that’s the piece of rescue that is hardest – they are all good dogs, but some require a little more of us than others.
Sometimes you rescue a dog from a shelter, imagining it’s shiny new future now that it is ‘out’, but Continue reading “Diary of a Rescue: Month Six”
We have a very special guest with us this week. (As if four dogs wasn’t enough!)
Oreo and I go way back to the day I met him in a shelter in North Carolina, where he’d been living on and off for over a year. He’d been adopted out twice, but neither adopter chose to neuter him or bring him inside, so he ran off (as unneutered male dogs are want to do) and Animal Control returned him to the shelter each time.
There was something special about Oreo—the way he looked at us, the way he leaned into his kennel fence desperate for your touch, and how he’d hold your hand through the fence.
It was a long and winding road from that day Continue reading “Our Special Visitor”
You make many sacrifices when you foster dogs. That’s the truth of it. The sacrifices are generally worth it, but they’re a reality.
I think it’s expected that we make sacrifices for causes or events or creatures that are important to us—maybe that’s how we know what’s important to us — we don’t mind the sacrifices (much).
I’m continually amazed at what people will sacrifice for their pets, and humbled by what other foster parents will do for their foster dogs. I definitely do not have the market cornered on suffering or stress endured at the hands (paws) of my foster dogs.
Thelma is a joy. A love. An absolute sweetheart. She rocked the K9&Kds event today, charming everyone, young and old. Watch how she handles the attention of the children at our Fourth of July party (fireworks did not phase her, btw, more evidence of her easy-going and tolerant soul).
Note: This is a lot for a foster dog (or any dog) to not just tolerate, but to invite. Thelma followed these two around all night, thriving on their ‘attention,’ but she (and the children) were supervised.
As evidenced, Thelma is quite a remarkably rare dog.
But there is a dark side to Thelma…. Continue reading “Fostering Dogs May Require a Sacrifice (or Ten)”
I owe you an update.
From my perspective, I’ve been to the moon and back this past month emotionally. Between losing my precious pup Frankie and witnessing all that I saw in Tennessee, our foster dogs have been an afterthought, at least in terms of writing. Yet they’ve been here all along demanding care and attention, an anchor preventing me from being washed away by the sadness. So here’s what’s happening with all of them. Continue reading “The State of Our Pack”
Another Good Dog™ 