Our adventures as a foster dog family
“Sure, and when we find a good one, we’ll keep it.”
This was Nick’s response to my question, “How about if we foster a cat?”
I didn’t point out to Nick that his response was the very same one he’d had about the possibility of fostering dogs seven years ago, and then we subsequently fostered almost 200.
Continue reading “Another Good Cat (or Three)?”
I’m out on shelter tour for Who Will Let the Dogs Out. I’d love for you to follow along….
Traveling through the south this time around feels different. It’s not just the masks that are sometimes prevalent and other times completely absent. As we wind through the mountains on our way to Nashville, I wondered about priorities. Is it wrong to want to save dogs when people are struggling so much? Will people care what we about what we are seeing? Will they find everything as heartbreaking and inspiring at the same time, as I do?
I think it’s even more remarkable how hard the people we meet are working. Despite the compassion fatigue and an often apathic public, so many continue to fight for lives, even as the wave of homeless dogs builds instead of ebbing.
Everyone said that the silver lining of the pandemic was all the adoptions, the empty shelters, the new awareness of rescue, the flood of fosters. And that was great. I’m definitely not…
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I’m a slave to the leash. Or at least a slave to the creatures on the other end of it. While I’m not presently fostering any dogs, my days still revolve around dogs – walking them.
Living with our three dogs in ‘downtown’ Woodstock, has changed my world (and theirs) dramatically. Now instead of opening the door to let the dogs out, I leash them up, generally one at a time but sometimes two at a time.
Continue reading “Walking Dogs”How would you like to be a part of changing the world?
Okay, maybe that’s a bit grand. How about being a part of changing the world for dogs in the south?
Here’s your chance.
After traveling to nearly 50 shelters and rescues and dog pounds, photographer, Nancy Slattery and I created Who Will Let the Dogs Out (WaLDO, as we affectionately call it) to raise awareness and resources for shelter dogs and the people who fight for them.
In Tennessee, where my dogs Fanny and Otis, and many of our foster dogs originate, life is not easy for an unwanted dog. And there are plenty of unwanted dogs.
Continue reading “Taking a Big Leap”It’s rare that I do this. I try not to mix my ‘dog world’ with my ‘writer world’, but today is a big day in my life and I just needed to share this news with you….
It’s Tuesday so that means a post for Another Good Dog. I’ve been writing this blog for over five years. That’s a lot of posts! Today I am in Virginia at our cabin, Chateau Frankie, celebrating twenty-five years being married to Nicholas.
We are hiking and exploring our future hometown and probably eating and drinking too much. Fanny is with us, so maybe today we have driven over to the other side of the Massanutten mountains to the town of Woodstock where there is an excellent dog park that even has a few pieces of agility equipment (in addition to an excellent brew pub!). Or maybe we rented canoes and are floating up the south fork of the Shenandoah River.
Continue reading “While I’m Away…”
Do you want to know what happy looks like in a 45 pound package with four legs?
That would be Mia. This dog simply never has a bad day, or a dull moment, or an off-switch. Well, that’s not entirely true. She does sleep—in fact, when she does it is much like she lives—loud. The girl can snore.
Mama Mia is back with us and she is an entirely different dog than the dog who arrived here last April with ten puppies still nursing.
Continue reading “Four-legged Happy”
Everyone wants a puppy.
I get that.
Puppies are cute and fun and at least at this age (seven weeks) they are highly entertaining.
These puppies are no exception and already, Continue reading “CAUTION: Puppies”
As nothing has changed with my foster dogs…Daisy B and Flannery O’Connor remain here with no applications, I thought I might catch you up on the cat story that began when we purchased a small, run-down cabin in the mountains of Virginia.
This has been a dream of ours for decades. We spend several weekends a year in or near the Shenandoah Valley and mountains and have come to regard it as our future home. The hiking, the vistas, the wineries, the quiet, the river, the mountains, the quaint little towns that seem frozen in time – it all speaks to my heart.
So we pledged our pennies and future pennies to this little cabin that has been neglected for twenty years. We have exactly one year to renovate it so that it can begin earning its keep as Continue reading “Who Opened the Cat Floodgates?”
I said you wouldn’t hear from me while I am on ‘sabbatical’ in Virginia, but apparently, that isn’t true.
I came here to hike and work on our future home and write and read the stacks of books I brought with me; I didn’t come here to rescue animals. I planned to scrub and build and repair and plant, but instead, I find myself once again, up to my neck in rescuing animals.
The (insert expletive of your choice) man who lived here before us left us his cat. Plus Continue reading “I Didn’t Come Here to Rescue Animals”
Another Good Dog™ 