Our adventures as a foster dog family
Last week I told you about Cherry, so this week I want to introduce you to the other lovely lady sharing the foster cottage and my office with me.
Gracie Lou is what I call a Miniature Land Hippo. She’s a bulldog mix with a stout, sturdy, roundish frame, much like a hippopotamus. She weighs about 50 pounds and is simply adorable.
The mama dogs are always the ones that get to me. They’ve been through so much and it’s clear not just in the condition of their bodies, but in their eyes.
Grateful. That’s the word that emanates from them.
And Cherry is no different. She’s had a particularly hard journey. Her owners surrendered her to the shelter and said she didn’t belong to them —she was just a stray who had been tied in their yard for the last four years.
So much about that statement chills my soul.
Continue reading “Mama Dogs Get to Me”
Let me just say that four puppies is much less than twelve. And a 30 pound dog is much easier than a 60 pound dog. Sure, those are generalizations, but I do feel a bit like a marathoner who is running a 5K.
Estelle is a rockstar mom. The puppies are fat and shiny and eleven days old, but Estelle already seems restless. I think in human terms she’s one of those moms who has a hundred Pinterest boards and writes three blogs, while making all homemade baby food and teaching step aerobics.
She hops in the box, does a quick clean up and lays down to let the pups nurse. And then she hops right back out of the box and takes a tour of the tiny room she’s trapped in, checking under the grow light table and in the buckets under the mudsink. When I toss toys in for her to play with, she inspects them and then carries them into the box and nestles them beside her pups. Then she stands guard by the gate, growling at strangers (which include my children) and barking at her reflection in the front door glass pane or the cats moving around on the porch. Each time Gracie barks Continue reading “Estelle is a Rock Star Mom”
Another Good Dog™ 