Our adventures as a foster dog family
My world revolves around dogs.
They eat up every extra minute in my day. I probably knew that, but it was painfully obvious last Thursday. It was just me and Gracie. The house was so very quiet and weirdly still. I had time on my hands. I even cooked a real dinner.
How is that possible you ask? Continue reading “Here in This Kettle with the Other Frogs”
This morning as I began to reorient myself to life in the real world after three wonderful weeks in the mountains, I started by cleaning up and putting away the detritus of summer. School starts on Thursday. It will be the last ‘first day’ for us as our baby starts his senior year in high school.
While I was away, Thelma Continue reading “Back to the Dogs”
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”
I am still struggling on a daily basis to accept that Frankie is gone. To say I miss him doesn’t even begin to touch what I feel. Caring for the other dogs gets me out of bed, but moving forward? That seemed out of reach. I need to do something with my grief – so the trip that Ian and I have been planning since winter has been the perfect panacea.
I had hoped to share about this trip weeks ago, but like so much else in my life right now, it was pushed aside. We’ve shortened our originally planned trip in terms of days and distance, but it feels right to be doing this now and I’m grateful for the distraction and the chance to do something to honor Frankie.
Ian is my 17-year-old son, my youngest.
He’s my baby, despite the fact that Continue reading “I Just Can’t Wait to Get on the Road Again…”
Maybe you’ve had too many puppies funnel through your home when you have to schedule ‘puppy socialization’ into your day and beg your kid to play with them. My two older kids were home briefly before taking off for more exciting destinations and neither of them even went in the puppy pen while they were here.
Ian’s a great photographer, so I keep bugging him to take their picture, anything to give them a little attention. (If you want to follow his 365 project on Instagram, look him up at iachterberg_photo – he posted the BEST picture of Gracie yesterday and sooner or later the puppies will turn up I’m sure.)
Having failed at getting Ian to take the puppies’ photos and running up against the deadline for them to go out to the Puppy Waiting List (the people who are approved and get first dibs), I decided to Continue reading “You Know You’ve Fostered Too Many Puppies When…”
I’m big on food. I love to eat and spend a lot of time thinking about, growing, planning, and preparing food.
This time of year, the asparagus is coming in by the hour and we eat it at nearly every meal. The rhubarb is up, so there’s pressure to do something with it besides the same old thing (strawberry-rhubarb pie). This year I discovered a recipe for lemon-rhubarb scones that is delicious (but if you know a good rhubarb recipe, I’m all ears). The baby lettuce is filling up the garden and always in danger of being trampled by Frankie and Flannery as they wrestle and chase. Up next are strawberries, snap peas, kale, and a plethora of herbs.
I also spend a lot of time thinking about, planning, and feeding dogs. It is Continue reading “Feeding Lots of Dogs at Once”
Another Good Dog™ 