One of Those Weeks

Fostering is a lot of work.

I won’t lie or paint a warm fuzzy picture of it being all unicorns and happy endings and lovely dogs who don’t poop indoors.

This past week has been one of those weeks. Nothing terrible happened and everyone is fine and on-their-way-to-being-healthy.

They are happy and engaged and exercised and gaining weight. (Pretty much every animal in this cottage except me, needs to gain weight.)

But I am pretty wiped out. It’s been non-stop.

The puppies are growing and eating and pooping pretty much everywhere. Stela is mostly finished nursing them. She goes in for a few minutes about two or three times a day, but I think she only comes in because she’s my shadow and I’m in there to clean (which is helpful because it keeps the puppies from ‘helping’ me).

The bigger they get, the more poop they produce. Nothing out of the ordinary, and I certainly am familiar with puppy poop. I knew when I said yes to these puppies, I would be living a poop-filled life for a few weeks.

Add to all the poop clean up and play time, the necessary chore of deworming (again and again). This means weighing/measuring/administering dewormer multiple times a week.

Because we’re in a new place and are still developing a support network of neighbors and friends, I don’t have a lot of puppy visitors. Which means it falls to me to play/love/exercise/engage these little beasts. They are darlings, so this is not a chore, but it is work that takes time.

Stella is feeling much better after a few days of not eating and not moving around much. Two dewormings are likely part of that improvement. I’m glad she’s feeling better, but it means she is a LOT more dog.

She is bunking with the kittens in the kitchen because I don’t have a crate for her (more about that in a minute). That worked when she was exhausted and feeling yucky and mostly lay on the floor (next to one of the two dog beds I’ve provided – she seems averse to comfy beds).

But now that she’s feeling better she is always eager for a walk (she’s wonderful on a leash!). Instead of simply observing the kittens she plays with them through the crate fence – they swat her nose or grab her tail if she’s passing by and she barks at them. Sometimes they push a toy halfway out of the crate and she yanks it the rest of the way and piles it on one of the beds she doesn’t use.

Super cute…but…when you’re trying to work (my desk is in the next room), it’s distracting. Plus, paranoia makes me jump up and check every time there’s a particularly rowdy play session.

The reason Stela is free-roaming and not crated to prevent misdirected chewing or the overly rowdy kitten play sessions is that there is no crate for Stela because Argus returned from his trial adoption.

Much as I kind of suspected, he really needs a woman as his main caretaker. He is afraid of men, and even though his potential adopter is a great guy who did everything right and tried really hard to make it work, after a week it was clear that Argus was not going to warm up anytime soon. He came alive with the kids and the girlfriend (and the girlfriend’s dog) showing his happy personality. So his potential adopter decided it would be best for Argus if he found an adoptive home where a man would not be his main caretaker. (I’ll post more of my thoughts on this in an upcoming blog post ALL-ABOUT-ARGUS.

Argus moved right back in as if he’d never left, playing with Marley, lounging on the futon, waggling his full-body smile at the sight of me. But it also means one more dog to walk, play with, pay attention to.

Marley is still here but, paws crossed, she’ll be joining a lovely forever family very soon.

Having three dogs and two crates means that the law of least destruction comes into play. Which dog will be the least destructive if left free roaming?

Marley will race from window to window (climbing all over my desk in the process and clearing it of laptop, planner, pencil holder, candles, and all the stacks of papers I need to deal with). She is a little busy-body who will watch for every dog or person who happens by and often call out a greeting.

Argus is still enough of a puppy, that while he’s an angel when I’m in here working chewing only appropriate toys (as long as I keep my shoes on my feet), if left loose and unattended for extended periods, he would very well get bored enough to eat the futon and heaven knows what else, so crating him when he’s unsupervised is critical.

Which leaves Stela who is generally a very good girl. But as she grows more comfortable and healthier, her intelligent and curious personality is coming out, never mind her ability to scale the baby gates that close off my office and the puppy room.

Stela is definitely keeping me on my toes, but the real work this past week has been the kittens.

Two of my seven came down with an URI (Upper Respiratory infection), which I’m learning is a ‘thing’ in kitten fostering. It’s a new thing to me, though, so I’m still learning how to safely medicate their tiny noses and eyes and measure minute amounts of medicine. Plus, because it’s highly infectious, cleaning, which was already taking a ton of time, is taking even more time.

Every day three times a day, I have to check all the kittens, medicate the ones who need it (nose drops, eye ointment, antibiotic), plus weigh and deworm them (we are in the midst of a six-day Safeguard treatment).

As they get bigger, just like the puppies, they make bigger messes. Thankfully, they are confined to the litterbox, but in the interest of not gassing myself out of my workspace, that box must be scooped four times a day.

Work.

And I didn’t even mention the laundry, which is a nonstop activity washing towels, toys, beds, cleaning rags, and puppy pads.

And dishes – sanitizing multiple food and water bowls after every meal. This is critical because those poopy puppies have no qualms about wandering right through their water dish with their poop-covered paws or dragging their empty food bowl across the poop-smeared floor. And the kittens occasionally get the zoomies and zoom right through the food/water dishes with the same paws that just buried their poop. (That’s a lot of use of the word ‘poop’ in one paragraph.)

I wash all those dishes, not just because of the gross-factor, but because it can be life-saving. Have I mentioned that worms are also a ‘thing’ with puppies AND kittens? And you know how those microscopic invaders pass from one baby animal to another, right? (HINT: It’s a word I overused in the previous paragraph).

So, yes, fostering is work.

And yes, I brought it on myself.

And of course, the moment one of these dogs leaves, I’ve got two fosters waiting in the wings to join us.

But right now is not a time to step back from fostering just because it’s a lot of work. Right now there is a growing crisis in our nation’s shelters and rescues. Euthanasia numbers went up instead of down in 2022 for the first time in at least ten years. And they will be higher again in 2023.

We are paying for not only the high number of ill-advised (but well-intentioned) adoptions during the pandemic, but a year of not spaying and neutering because it wasn’t ‘essential’, and an increase in backyard and puppy mill breeding to meet the massive demand for pandemic puppies. Add to that a housing crisis, Breed-specific legislation/housing restrictions/insurance policies, economic uncertainty, and sheer exhaustion on the part of rescue volunteers. What you end up with is the current nightmare, and the animals are paying the price.

So, no, I’m not going to step back and do less. And yes, I’m going to continue to push for you to join me. If you’ve ever considered fostering dogs or cats (or puppies or kittens), now would be a great time to jump in. If you’ve got questions, hit me up. And if you don’t know where you can foster, reach out and I’ll connect you.

It’s a lot of work. And sometimes, like this week, it’s REALLY a lot of work.

But it is worth it to my soul to know that I am doing all that I can.

That was a long one! Sorry – if you’re still with me, thanks for reading!

Until Each One Has a Home,

Cara

For information on me, my writing, and books, visit CaraWrites.com.

If you’d like regular updates of all our foster dogs past and present, plus occasional dog care/training tips, and occasional foster cat updates (!) be sure to join the Facebook group, Another Good Dog.

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 and subscribe to our blog where we share stories of our travels to shelters, rescues, and dog pounds.

If you can’t get enough foster dog stories, check out my book: Another Good Dog: One Family and Fifty Foster Dogs . Or its follow up that takes you to the shelters in the south One Hundred Dogs & Counting: One Woman, Ten Thousand Miles, and a Journey Into the Heart of Shelters and Rescues.

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

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