Joys of fostering....

I could not give you the number of times we have been asked how we can give up a dog we have been fostering, but my standard answer for a few years has always been, "Because we know when we find a good furever home for one of our fosters, we will go right back into the shelters and find another dog on a kill list that we can save... by adopting this dog today, you are actually saving two dogs instead of one."

And that's really how most of us foster think about the process... Yes, we love our fosters and they are treated just like our own dogs for as long as they are with us, but we also know that there are dogs dying today that are great dogs, could find their furever home if they just had more time and if rescues aren't going in and pulling these dogs, they die a cold and lonely death.

Fostering is not just for 'tree hugging' loonies... It is really for someone who wants to make a difference in the world, one dog at a time... Or for a momma who is preggers, it is several dogs at a time... We never know what we will find in a rescued dog - some are like jigsaw puzzles as we piece it back together, little by little... Others come out of the shelters in "shelter shock", unable to deal with a lot of noise, activity, other dogs, high energy levels (i.e. small children) or just life in general as they were traumatized during their shelter stint... Others are great dogs going in and coming out - easily adaptable to just about everything and they find furever homes rapidly... And then we always have a few that we have to start from scratch with - marking in the house, learning the doggie door, realizing that sleeping in a crate at night is not such a bad thing, etc...

But how many times in life can we take something broken and make it whole again?... How many times can you capture a moment and know that you - yourself - created the environment that allowed this dog (or several) to become well balanced and adoptable again?... It is a VERY empowering feeling that once experienced, becomes intoxicating and a passion you are hooked to, more powerful than any drug...

This is a beautiful shot of two unrelated dogs - RitaBaDeta and BettyBoop... BettyBoop is a young pup that needs other emotional supports around her to stay balanced... She's bonded herself to another orphan (Benny) and when the two of them are together, it is a beautiful thing to watch... As she has grown older, on occasion she will reach outside herself and trust other dogs... In this particular photo, BettyBoop was asleep underneath my feet at the computer and RitaBaDeta felt that BettyBoop's eyes needed cleaning... Half asleep, BettyBoop kept moving like an irritated child for she wanted to sleep and not be licked... RitaBaDeta felt it needed to be done and as I watched the exchange going on, it gave me enough time to grab the camera and snap one of those 'memory foster moments' we all have so many times in this passion...

I must have a gazillon of them by now after all of these years... But even on a bad day, no one can take these memory moments away from me... It is the 'juice' that keeps us rescuers going - the updates from new furparents and their shared joy with one of our fosters who now has found their furever home - the precious moments we are privileged to see when two dogs interact with each other in unconditional love when you yourself know just HOW close they both came to being euthanized...

These memory moments are priceless and this is why I am a foster...

Linda