Fosterless

And poof! He was gone.

I warned you we wouldn’t have Bo very long. They don’t make them much nicer. We had a fun week with him and packed in as much as we could, but on Sunday Bo left for his forever home.

It’s a great home with a mom who works from home and a sweet, happy fur-brother to play with (Dad’s pretty great too). Couldn’t be happier for this abandoned Tennessee dog who spent the holidays at the shelter. Bo has a huge heart and a gentle spirit and so deserves this happy ending.

A few pictures of our Bo-filled week:

Late night arrival

Cheatum sent him wearing a yellow bow tie

watching football with Nick

hanging in my office with Fanny

Playdate at the dog park with Edith

repeated encounters with Luna (who was not a fan)

Snuggling on the Frank bed every morning

Endless tussles over toys

Rainy weekend at the cabin

Last night, as I sat on the couch with Fanny and breathed in the quiet, I tried to figure out when was the last time we were fosterless. You’d have to go back a few years. Between our long-term fosters Gala, Flannery, and Daisy, even when we were between puppy litters, we still had a foster dog.

I confess that I am truly reveling in the quiet. Until there was no need for it, I didn’t realize how much mental energy is spent wondering if anyone needs to go potty or is chewing something they shouldn’t. The silence highlighted how much noise is generated by even two dogs that get along–wrestling over toys, competing to sound the alarm about any of the cats’ activities, arguing over couch space, or the tell-tale sound of a nose searching for buried treasure in the cats’ litter box.

I certainly don’t miss the special challenges of housing several dogs that don’t get along–rotating crate time, kitchen time, outside time, and negotiating the multiple baby gates. Or the endless considering of who needs attention/training/crate time, who gets to go on today’s hike/run, who needs heartworm preventative or dewormer or flea/tick preventative. My laptop lay unopened because there was no need to post to Facebook to attract adopters, update each dog’s profile on the rescue website, or deal with the multiple emails from adoption coordinators or potential adopters.

Fostering is rewarding and fun but it is also work.

I’ll enjoy four more days of this peace before the chaos returns in the form of three big puppies. These darlings hail from Alabama; two boys and a girl who are already three months old so they’ll be looking for adopters right away. I’m debating between two sets of names:

The Three Little Pigs (Petunia Pig, Porky Pig, and Spider Pig)

Or

The Three Stooges (Larry, Mo, and Curly)

I’ll wait until I meet them to figure out which fits best.

If you’re in the market for a puppy, you’ll want to apply now and get approved—just in case—puppies go fast and take a look at these darlings so I’m pretty sure they’ll go lickety-split.

Thanks for reading!

Cara

If you’d like regular updates of all my foster dogs past and present, plus occasional dog care/training tips from OPH training, be sure to join the Facebook group, Another Good Dog. (You’ll likely get a peek at the newest darlings on FB before next week’s post.)

For information on me, my writing, and my upcoming book, One Hundred Dogs and Counting: One  Woman, Ten Thousand Miles, and a Journey into the Heart of Shelters and Rescues, visit CaraWrites.com.

And if you’d like to know where all these dogs come from and how you can help solve the crisis of too many unwanted dogs in our shelters, visit WhoWillLetTheDogsOut.org.

Our family fosters through the all-breed rescue, Operation Paws for Homes, a network of foster homes in Virginia, Maryland, D.C., and south-central PA.

If you can’t get enough foster dog stories, check out my book: Another Good Dog: One Family and Fifty Foster Dogs . It’s available anywhere books are sold.

I love to hear from readers and dog-hearted people! Email me at carasueachterberg@gmail.com.