Our adventures as a foster dog family
Every dog deserves a good home. I believe that. But some dogs deserve a little bit more.
Abby, for instance.
Although she can’t tell us (and certainly she doesn’t seem to hold any of it against anyone), but she has had a rough go.
Continue reading “Every Dog Deserves a Good Home”
Abby is still here. And it’s just not fair.
She’s no longer living on a chain (yay), but she is confined to one room much of her day. She can see the other dogs, hang out with our foster cat, and watch the activity out her window, but she’d much prefer to be with a person.
Abby is a people-dog. She loves people – all kinds, all sizes, all attitudes. She isn’t discouraged by her predicament, but I am.
Continue reading “Looking for Your Next Best Friend?”
Haven’t you always dreamed of a dog you can take with you everywhere? I’ve got one for you!
Abby is the most portable foster I’ve had in recent memory. She simply loves a good outing.
I can’t help but think that if my two foster pups were scruffy or curly or smaller or younger, or this was a year ago, they’d be snapped up by now. Instead, these two housebroken, crate-trained, people-friendly, lovely-on-a-leash dogs are spending long lonely days in their crates in my future foster cottage.
Often when you first bring home a new foster dog (or two), the dog is still stunned by its new situation, maybe feeling queasy from the recent dewormings and vaccinations, so they are not themselves. It’s a mistake to assume that the compliant, easy-to-deal-with dogs you first bring home will still be that way a week or two into their stay with you.
I’ve fostered over 200 dogs now, and am wary of that honeymoon period. So, I’ve been holding my breath, wondering if Abby and Bonnie (A&B) who had been so quiet and easy their first week with me, would continue to be once they got comfortable with their surroundings…..
Continue reading “The Honeymoon is Over”
Melissa Chan wrote in an article for Time magazine last week, “a surge in pandemic pet adoptions offers opportunities for criminals to seize on nationwide demand and shelter shortages…”
People are so desperate for French bulldogs, one small private investigator in Nebraska who specializes in missing pets says calls have increased 60-70% in the past 18 months, averaging 3-5 requests a week.
Reading the article, I could only shake my head. It seemed to me Chan was writing about another world altogether. It wasn’t the news that so many pets are being stolen—that is individually tragic—but it was how she so breezily tossed off the phrase, shelter shortages, as if it were fact.
Continue reading “What ‘Shelter Shortages?’”
I’ve come to realize that pictures are more powerful than words. And video is even more powerful than pictures. I can write and write and write about a subject, but seeing it in action always has a bigger impact.
This month marks one year since Mia entered our lives. It astounds me that she is still here. I remember watching her with her puppies and with the people she met and thinking, “It will be so easy to get this dog adopted.”
There are a lot of wagging tails in this household, and Otis has just upped the ante.
He has a big, loose, 180-degree+, constant wag. His tail can make circles or figure eights. I’m fascinated by its repetoire.
Mia’s tail is also constant, and mostly back and forth, with her hips going just as fast.
Continue reading “Which Way Does Your Tail Wag? (plus DNA results!)”
I think the reason people who foster a litter of puppies agree to do it again is the same reason people have more than one child. You forget.
You forget the mess. You forget the noise. You forget the smell. You forget the laundry and the work and endlessness of it.
All you remember is the joy and the cuteness and the love.
I asked for this. I could have stuck with full-grown dogs. But no, I needed puppies.
Continue reading “Put a Little More Puppy in Your Day”
Smart dogs are just harder to deal with—same goes for smart children. Mia still has no applications, but that’s not her fault. She isn’t a simple dog.
She is clever and energetic and totally in the game. She doesn’t miss a thing—my glance her way while working will bring her to her feet, she’ll nudge my hip as if to ask, “How can I help?”
Continue reading “Of Bite Addendums, Smart Dogs, and Transparency”
Another Good Dog™ 