Our adventures as a foster dog family
I am home again after a week of visiting and volunteering in seven animal shelters in our rural south with an amazing team of volunteers.
When I try to describe the experience, I have to grapple for words. I’ve been to the shelters before; I was there while on book tour last fall. But this time, Continue reading “The Business of Saving Animals”
I’ve often wondered what my limit is.
I know other people who have four, five, even nine dogs living in their houses.
Five.
That’s clearly my limit, judging by Continue reading “Foster Dog Overload”
I have to forewarn you that this past week hasn’t been terribly exciting. The progress with Daisy is only incremental and likely will stay that way. Again and again, I shake my head at the depth of pain this dog has endured. Her scars are deeper than any dog I’ve encountered.
It has been a month now since I picked up Daisy on a cold night at the bowling alley where she arrived on a transport from South Carolina.
And yet despite the fact, that during that first week of fevers, labor, delivery, and surgery, literally carrying her 60+ pound body in and out of cars, hospitals, and vet offices, she Continue reading “Diary of a Rescue Week Four: Progress is an Eight-Letter Word”
I’ve always liked dogs.
Liked them.
I wasn’t necessarily a ‘dog person.’ We always had a dog when I was growing up. A steady stream of strays and dogs that just happened into our lives. Truly, I never gave it much thought. I liked cats better. Especially once I hit young adulthood and lived in an apartment.
But now, somehow, dogs have taken over my life. My days, really my hours, revolve around dogs. Currently, we have four here at the house. Two are permanent residents and two are foster dogs only here for a spell awaiting the moment when their forever families find them.
As I write, Continue reading “If I Never Fostered Dogs….”
This past week taught me the truth of ‘Together We Rescue’.
Sometimes we forget the fact that none of us has to go through this life alone. It’s our choice.
Like most people, asking for help doesn’t always come naturally for me. I want to be that strong, independent, I-can-handle-it person, and more than that, I just don’t want to bother anyone. We’re all more than busy, right?
Thankfully, when a crisis rose up this week for Daisy, friends stepped in an offered help and for once, I was smart enough to take it. It was that help that got us through the week and helped Daisy to expand her own circle of trust, proving that she is more resilient than I thought.
Yes, she is still terrified of men and has yet to let my husband or son pet her or put on a leash, but as she watches Nick’s outstretched hand or creeps towards him and then scurries away, I know her mind is weighing it all. Risk versus reward. It likely took some time to inflict the emotional wounds she carries and it will take even longer to heal them, but this week proved that we are making progress.
If you’d like to follow this Diary of a Rescue in real time, you can do that on Facebook at Cara Sue Achterberg, writer. Here are this week’s entries: Continue reading “Diary of a Rescue Week Three: Together We Rescue”
All along this journey, I have been buoyed by an outpouring of support online and by friends who have come by and brought food and company or emailed to ask what they can do. I even got a lovely gift from Arkansas!
As we lost the puppies last week, people kept saying, “I could never do that,” but somehow, I think you could and more than that, I could never do it without the support of family and friends.
If last week taught me anything, it’s that I am stronger than I know. All during that long, long night when Daisy’s labor began and it became clear that it was too soon for puppies to be born Continue reading “Diary of a Rescue Week Two”
Flannery is about to enter her sixth month in OPH care which makes her a ‘long-term dog’.
Currently, up to 30% of the dogs on our site are ‘long term dogs’. There’s a reason why each dog got that label and it certainly doesn’t mean those dogs aren’t good dogs.
It’s just means Continue reading “Risk Worth the Reward: Long Term Dogs”
Meet our current (about to change) roster:
Hula, who you will remember arrived deathly thin, riddled with worms and nursing three puppies, is a new dog. She has gained weight, her coat has a nice gloss, and there are no traces of her mommy-life. She is full-on puppy and always ready to play. She is also always ready to steal socks. She pilfers them out of dirty laundry baskets and from where they hide, abandoned in a ball under the couch. Once in her possession, she challenges Frankie or Flannery to a game of tug of war.
They stretch the sock into unimaginable proportions, and then, Continue reading “You Can’t Tell the Players without a Program”
All four dogs like to lounge in my office after their early morning romp in the play yard. Having four that get along so nicely is refreshing. Between that fact and the three quiet, sweet, not-quite-so-messy puppies, fostering has never been so easy.
Flannery finished her week shut-down and emerged a different dog. When she arrived she was snappy and tense, having proven to all that she will not do well in a home with young children. That wasn’t something I expected when she was adopted a few months ago by a family with five children.
Flannery is such a busy, fun, happy pup, so I was surprised to learn that Continue reading “Returning an Adopted Dog (Flannery, Flannery, Flannery…)”
Christmas week was joyous and dog-filled at our house. Frankie reveled in the presence of family and the presents under the tree. My mom gave me a sign that says it all –
My happiest news for you is that Daisy Duke was adopted!
Before she left, though, Nick and I took her along on his birthday trip to the Shenandoah Mountains. She was a great traveler, but just about the time I said, “I don’t know why her previous adopter said she was an escape artist….” she threw in a few parting shots.
For the past three weeks she had been Velcro-ed to my side at all times and never gotten out of crate, gate, door, or window. Honestly, I had even forgotten to worry about it. Continue reading “Have Dogs, Will Travel”
Another Good Dog™ 