Our adventures as a foster dog family
The great thing about fostering is that when your life is stuffed full and you have no extra time/energy/emotion for a dog, you can take a break.
That’s what we are doing. So this week, with no dog to tell you about, I thought I’d tell you about a cool FREE service I just learned about on a podcast.
This is SO IMPORTANT. It could save your pet’s life. Literally. Continue reading “What If You Lose Your Dog?”
Houdini was adopted on Sunday by a lovely family who met him at an event the week before. He’s a first family dog and they were over-the-moon happy to welcome him to their family.
Nick handled the adoption because I was attending the volunteer seminar for OPH.
The day had nearly wrapped up and I quick checked my phone to see if there were any messages from home regarding the adoption, the ten-pack of puppies, or their mama.
Nothing from home but there was a message from the adoption coordinator who handled Houdini’s (aka Hot Diggity) adoption. He had slipped his collar moments after the adopters arrived home and he was now missing. OPH was Continue reading “Houdini’s Last Act”
This time I really thought I’d seen the last of Gala.
That was my thought, anyway, as I watched her disappear through the woods in pursuit of a herd of deer. She was headed in the general direction of Maryland, and I was pretty sure she would make it.
We were about a mile and a half away from home on our regular run when the deer appeared. Gala did what she usually does – leapt in the air after them.
Because we run with the Easy Walk harness, this usually means that as she reaches the end of her lead, the harness forces her to do a lovely pirouette in midair and land facing me again.
This is the point where I say, “Leave it,” in my firm, take-no-prisoners voice, and then she does not leave it. Most days it takes three or four pirouettes and reminders before she gives up and simply prances for a quarter mile or so.
On Friday, she had done about four pirouettes, when she went airborne for a fifth. This time, though, Continue reading “Runaway Gala (& The Pepper Puppers)”
Every now and again, the dog-thing gets a bit overwhelming. This weekend was one of those times. It makes me pause and wonder if I’m doing too much, asking too much of my family, my own pets, my own heart.
It’s so easy to anthropomorphize dogs. (I toss that big word out there as if I didn’t have to look up the spelling and be sure I was using it correctly. It means to attribute human characteristics and purposes to inanimate objects, plants, and animals.)
We imagine we know a dog’s motives, emotions. We think we can read its expressions, sense its moods, understand why it responds the way it does, even interpret its feelings. (I’ve been anthropomorphizing Gracie for years — but who knows what really goes through that little head of hers.)
This week confirmed for me once again that dogs, like people, are mysteries. It is nearly impossible to know another person’s heart, let alone a dog’s, and twice as easy to imagine that we do. We assume based on our own experiences and bias, but in reality we’re wrong as much as we’re blessed with a lucky guess or two.
Yesterday morning, for the first time in weeks, Gala and Darlin’ had a nasty fight. Continue reading “Rescue Work Overload & the Difference a little Trust Can Make”
The brown dogs are still here.
Seems like brown dogs are not in style this spring.
I have faith that their families will find them, but the longer they are here the more entrenched they become in our lives. Darlin’ is embarrassingly attached to me. So much so that when I leave, she whines and pines and generally annoys everyone left behind. When I return she is beside herself with happiness circling me and begging for my attention. She needs to find her person soon, so she can aim her endless devotion on the right soul.
Addie has decided Darlin’ looks like a giant hamster. I asked her why and she said, “She just does. Look at her!” Another OPH foster’s teenage daughter, who was here to help with the puppies, said Darlin’ looks like a capybara.
Thinking of the capybara brought memories of sitting through the videotape (yes, I’m that old) called “Baby Animals” which my preschool age children wore out with their constant viewing. The announcer tells them all about the Capybara. In fact, if it weren’t for that videotape I, like my OPH pal, would have thought she was making up the animal’s existence. I reminded Addie of that video and how she loved the capybara and she had no memory of ever seeing it. One more reminder that my version and her version of her childhood bear no resemblance. But Darlin’ does kind of resemble a capybara, doesn’t she….. Continue reading “Capybara, Hamster, or Darlin’? You decide! (Plus updates on Gala, Punkin, and missing dog, Cindee)”
On Sunday a dog that had been adopted from OPH by a family near me, got loose and ran off. She’s been missing ever since.
I’ve sadly been unable to be much help to the searchers as I spent the weekend in a fog of pain. I developed a pinched nerve in my neck on Thursday and it escalated to the point where I felt as if someone was driving a knife in the back side of my head and twisting nonstop. I’ve never experienced anything like it. I’ve read about the kind of people who live with chronic pain and I am most certain that I could never do it. In fact, as I sat (because lying down was even more painful) through the night on Saturday, I understood how a person could become addicted to pain killers.
I had swallowed four ibuprofen and two Tylenols and I was eyeing the serious pain killers that were left from my son’s wisdom teeth extraction. The pain was so far beyond crazy, I really didn’t care if I OD’d; I just needed some relief. I would have traded my first born son (although he’s away at college, so it might be an expensive trade) for the pain to stop. I’d have driven to a dark alley and made any kind of deal to get it to end. Continue reading “Missing Dog, My Drug Problem, and the Power of Family”
Another Good Dog™ 