Introducing Roxy

My foster dogs come from a wide variety of places.  Sometimes they are turned in by owners, sometimes they are transferred from another rescue group, and sometimes I go to a shelter and pick out a foster dog from those that are likely to be euthanized.  The ones I pick out myself tend to hold a very special place in my heart, and Roxy is one of those dogs.  I brought her home from a high-kill shelter three years ago, when she was just a puppy.  At the time I named her Pepsi.  She immediately captured my heart with her loving personality and her enthusiasm for everything in life. 

Roxy as a puppy

Pepsi was adopted by a great family and renamed Roxy.  She has grown up with a child her same age, and has not lost a bit of her enthusiasm for life.  Unfortunately her family recently had to return her due to economic circumstances, so yesterday Roxy came back home with me.

I was excited to see her again, but a bit concerned about how she would settle into a multi-dog and cat household after being an only pet for three years.  I need not have worried.  By the time night arrived, she was settled in on the bed with me, other foster dogs, and my cat Merlin.  She's made herself right at home, and she and Tulsa enjoy playing together.  I hope to start Canine Good Citizen classes with her soon, to help her learn a bit more self-control and basic obedience.  Like many dogs, she just needs to learn to control her extreme enthusiasm for people!  She's very smart and I think she's going to do great in class.

Roxy today

Update on my life

There have been a lot of changes since I returned from vacation two days ago. Tulsa, Ziggy and Bunny are back home with me. Toby did not come back home. He was staying at a foster home where he got to sleep on the bed and be totally spoiled. He was very happy there and his new foster mom said he could stay, so I reluctantly agreed. Actually I thanked her profusely and was very relieved. That's because this is National Return Month. It happens every year around this time. Adoptions slow down and we get call after call from adopters needing to return their pets. I don't know why the returns don't happen when adoptions are high - it would be so much easier. Instead all of our foster homes are full with fosters that aren't being adopted, and then the returns start coming in. So far this month I've had three calls about returns. First was Target, who was adopted out and then came back while I was on vacation. He's back home with me again and doing great (if you don't count the flip-flops he ate and the accident he had on my bed...sigh). Next is Stormy, a kitten adopted about a month ago who stopped using the litterbox. She will be going to the vet to get checked for a medical condition and then may or may not be returned. And last is Pepsi, a pit bull that I fostered about three years ago. Her family has to give her up and I'll be getting her back in another couple of weeks. Several other foster homes have also been getting returns this past week, so we're all hoping for a good weekend of adoptions. We're going to hold an extra adoption event on Sunday to try to get our foster pets seen by as many people as possible. I'll also be getting my cat Merlin back this weekend, as well as my foster cat Belle and a new foster cat named Lovey. I was supposed to be taking in three kittens as well, but fortunately their temporary foster mom fell in love with them while I was on vacation and is going to keep fostering them. I am not sure where they would go!


As soon as I get my act together, I'll have more pictures and stories for the blog. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy these final vacation photos from Waterton Lakes, Yellowstone National Park, and Grand Tetons National Park.

Cat-O-Lympics

In honor of the Winter Olympics, one of my blogger friends is hosting her own Cat-O-Lympics - and even better, she's allowing dogs to compete!  So of course we had to enter a few of the events.  Since some of the pets pictured here have since been adopted, we do not expect these to be official entries, but thought it would be fun to share these pictures anyway. 

For the Bare Paw Fighting event, hosted by Milo and Alfie, we have Sedna attacking Venus:

Sadly, Venus was blinded by the flash of the camera and was unable to retaliate. 

For the Competitive Napping event hosted by Huffle Mawson, we have two entries. 
First is Reese, sleeping on the couch.

She's a most serious competitor, and enjoys sleeping in odd positions just about anywhere.

Second is Bear, the Puppy Bowl star, sleeping with his foot in the water bowl, on the floor of the car.

It's not that he wasn't supposed to be there.  It's just that there was a very comfortable dog bed on the back seat above him, and a human willing to cuddle him in the front passenger seat, and yet he choose to sleep on the floor in the back.  While the car was in motion.  Perhaps my mom's driving scared him. 

Our next event is the Synchronized Snoozing event hosted by The Island Cats. 

Our first entry is submitted by three previous foster cats - I think it was Astro, GiGi and Blaze.  They awoke right before I took this photo - just in time to glare at me for disturbing their rest. 

The second entry is Pepsi and Ginger, two previous foster puppies who often performed synchronized snoozing in various locations around the house.

The following entries would more appropriately belong in an event called Synchronized Sitting.  Since as of now this is not an officially sanctioned event in the Cat-O-Lympics, and I'm too lazy busy to set it up myself, I'll just post these pictures as an idea for future organizers to consider. 

Cute puppies - who can resist?  And who can get them to all look at the camera at the same time... with no assistant... and without breaking their lineup?

I'll give you a clue how I did it...it involved a hot tub and a laundry basket.

Another example of Synchronized Sitting is exhibited by George and Taffy. 

And the final event we'd like to enter is the High Jump Event hosted by Cats in Maryland.  I'm about 5' 6", so I estimate here that Remi jumped to over 6 foot.  Of course, his back feet were only a few inches off the ground - but he did the best he could. 

Molly, Pepsi & Ginger were adopted!

It was a very good adoption day for me on Saturday - three of my four foster dogs were adopted! Molly went to a family with kids, who decided they were ready for a dog. She seemed very happy with them! Ginger's new family also has two kids, and a mom who had a hard time deciding whether to adopt Ginger or Pepsi. They're both such good puppies, but she finally decided Ginger would be a better fit with her family. That actually worked out well, because shortly after that my cousin came by, and fell in love with Pepsi. So I'm so glad they adopted her - now I'll be able to hear how she's doing in the future! We also had several other foster dogs adopted this weekend - it was a good week for everyone.

That leaves me with just Noelle at home. Oh, and my foster cat Doobie. He decided to hide just before it was time to leave for PetSmart, and even though I searched the house for 20 minutes, and checked all the usual cat hiding spots, I couldn't find him. So he got to skip adoption day this week. After I got home on Saturday night, he was in his usual spot on the bed, pretending like he'd been there all along - so I still don't know what new hiding spot he discovered!

One of the nice things about fostering is that I can take a break in between fostering dogs whenever I want to. So that's what I'm doing now... at least for a few weeks probably. I will still have lots of news to report on other Heartland foster dogs though! And of course I'll keep fostering Noelle, too. I've enrolled her in some private dog training classes, and the trainer is coming out on Thursday night to my home for her first class. If I foster Noelle long enough, I'd like to get her CGC Certification. That is a Canine Good Citizen award - it is given by the AKC for any dog who passes a 10-part test that shows they can perform basic obedience and are well-behaved in various social situations. For more information, go to http://www.akc.org/events/cgc/index.cfm. I plan to learn to train Noelle through these private lessons, and then be able to train other fosters to earn their CGC on my own in the future. I hope it will help some of the hard-to-adopt dogs to be adopted more quickly. Oh, and for those of you who support Heartland, I just want you to know that I'm paying for the classes myself. So if you think its a waste of money to train a foster dog, now you know it's my money and not any that you have donated to Heartland. :-) I have arranged with the trainer to allow me to take these classes, working toward the CGC, with whatever foster dog I have at the time. So while I plan to especially work with the harder to adopt dogs (like Noelle, since she's deaf), I also won't let it interfere with them being adopted if a perfect home comes along - I'll just get another hard-to-adopt dog to train and pick up with the classes where I left off! I'm still going to school for a Dog Training diploma, and a Shelter & Rescue Work diploma, but that will still take me a few years before I'm done, so in the meantime I want to get some extra hands-on help with training. Remember, i've only been a dog owner for a couple of years, and have NEVER taken a dog training class! My own dog Remi came to us already having attended several levels of obedience classes before we adopted him, so there was never really a need. I'm self-taught - having read every book I can get my hands on - and I've developed a lot of confidence in working with several of the dogs I've fostered over the past year. But sometimes it just makes a huge difference to see certain training techniques demonstrated, or to watch how someone solves a particular problem that a dog has. So I'm really looking forward to these classes.

My latest news - yesterday I went with another HHS foster volunteer to pick up some puppies. The owners dogs had two unplanned litters of puppies - 12 of them altogether! So we went and got them and took them back to the foster volunteer's house. On the way home, we saw two dogs running loose on highway 61. They looked like they were going to get hit by a car, so of course we stopped and tried to help. One of the dogs ran back up the embankment, and even though we went after it, we weren't able to find it. We were able to rescue the other dog, and since we knocked on doors of homes in the area but couldn't find her owners, she came home with me last night. This morning I was able to call the vet where her rabies tag was registered, and contact the owner. They came and picked her up, and they were very happy to get her back. Their other dog, the one who ran away from us, also made it back home safely, so it was a happy ending all-around!

Introducing Kermit & Doobie; Nacho was adopted!

Nacho, my little orange guy, was adopted tonight! So all of my orange kittens have now found homes. Also, Linguini, my very affectionate black cat that I borrowed from another foster mom, was adopted yesterday. So it's been a great week for cat adoptions for me - I only have one cat foster left! His name is Doobie, and here is his picture:


I also temporarily brought home another foster dog named Kermit recently. You may have heard me talk about Kermit before - he's become my latest project. :-) Kermit is a great dog who's been waiting a really long time for his own home. He has a neurological disorder which causes him to have poor balance. That, plus the fact that he's a big black dog, means he is often overlooked. He's been at his foster home for a very long time now, so his foster mom asked me if I wanted to see how he'd do in a new environment. I am happy to report he did great. He got along well with the other dogs and cats, and he even learned to handle stairs! He had zero accidents in the house, and was an all-around great foster for me. He only stayed at my house for about a week, since I have several other foster dogs right now. But now we can update his bio online, and hopefully that information will help him to find a new home. Here are a couple of pictures of Kermit from when he was at my house this past week:



While I was downloading pictures, I once again was surprised to find that my husband took a few photos while I wasn't home. It's always interesting to see what he takes pictures of. Here are a couple of his latest pictures...



Aren't they cute? I think this is more proof that he drugs them when I'm not there. :-) That's Ginger at the top, then Pepsi, and Noelle at the bottom. They're sleeping on the mattress that we have in our bedroom to use as Remi's bed. Remi is my Great Dane - he's 150 lbs and even though he usually sleeps in our bed whenever he can get away with it, sometimes my husband makes him go over to his own mattress. :-)

Introducing Molly

Now that Lacy is adopted and Murphy and Lexi are back at their own home, I don't have any big dogs that can play with Remi. I only have the three puppies - Pepsi and Ginger (3 months) and Noelle (4 months) - none of them weigh over 25 pounds, and while they get along well with Remi, they prefer to play with each other. So, I decided it was time to get an adult dog to foster. And guess who came along just at the right time? An adorable St. Bernard mix that was adopted out by Heartland as a puppy and returned this past weekend. Molly is one year old, and you may remember her from last December when her and her siblings were up at PetSmart trying to find homes. I think they were only there a couple of weeks, but they were so cute, they were hard to forget! I still have a picture I took with my camera phone from when they were puppies - I believe the one on the left is Molly.


And here is Molly now, almost one year later. As you can see she's grown a bit, but she's still as sweet as she was then. I brought her home tonight and she immediately fit right in with all the other animals. She is sleeping at my feet as I type this, and she is such a good dog. She weighs around 60 pounds right now, and she still needs to put on a little weight, so she'll probably be 75 pounds by the time she's done growing.


While I was taking pictures, I took a few of my other current fosters, just so you can keep up with which ones I have right now. :-) Here is Linguini - he's my lap cat. I'm borrowing him from PetSmart until Halloween is over, and he makes a great Halloween decoration! :-)



Next is Noelle. As much as I want to keep her, I decided it would be better for her to find a home where she can have her own family. While she is with me she has to share with so many other dogs and cats. By keeping her I also have less ability to take in the next homeless dog that needs me, and since there are a lot more adoptive homes than foster homes out there, I think it'll be better for her and for future homeless animals if she finds a permanent home with someone else. But, I'm holding out for a perfect home, and since she's a pit bull mix and deaf, that might take a very long time - I'm okay with that! :-)



And here is Noelle trying to play in the cat tree...


Next is Ginger. The puppies have been moved upstairs and are now being given the run of the house when I can watch them. They love playing with one of the fleece balls we got at Trivia Night - its one of their favorite toys!


Here is Pepsi, my little pit bull puppy. She loves to cuddle, and watched a movie with my husband and me last night, just laying on the couch between us.


And last are my two orange kittens - Cheeto and Nacho. I have a few other foster kittens (Blaze, Astro and Jester) but they're all staying up at PetSmart at least until Halloween is over trying to get homes. I'm also getting another cat named Dooby - I'll introduce him when I get him later this week. Oh, and Kermit is coming to visit! I'll introduce him later too. :-) For now, here's the last picture of my current foster. This is Cheeto, but he looks very similar to Nacho so I didn't need to take both of their pictures. :-)


Okay, now do you have all my fosters straight? If not, I don't either... I just know how many I'm supposed to have in total, and count now and then to make sure I have the right number of dogs and cats running around. Its much easier that way. :-)

Lacy and Frito were adopted!

Lacy was adopted at PetSmart today! She went to a home with a very nice couple who decided they were ready for a dog. They were "cat people" before this, so hopefully Lacy will do well with their cats, and maybe she can even convert them to becoming dog people. Hey, it happened to me once I got my first dog! :-)

Frito, one of my orange kittens was also adopted. I actually visited him in his new home this evening, and he has settled in already. He was sitting with his new family watching football - apparently he's a football fan and I never knew it - but he did fall asleep on the husband's lap while watching the game. He looked so happy in his new home with people to give him lots and lots of love.

Pepsi and Ginger made their first trip up to PetSmart this week, and they did very well. Well, Sue and Lori, two of the volunteers, may not agree - they had to clean up a few messes from the puppies! Both puppies are very young and not crate trained yet, so they haven't learned to hold it while they're in crates yet. But other than that, they did very well with all the noise and new people. Pepsi found a new best friend in Donna, another one of our dog volunteers. Ginger was a little more shy with meeting people, but she did very well overall. Jester, my newest cat, also made his first appearance at PetSmart. There was an empty cage there because Buttercup, a kitten I had at my house for awhile, was adopted today! So I left Jester there so hopefully someone will see him tomorrow or sometime soon and want to adopt him.

Last night was our Trivia Night fundraiser, and it was a lot of fun. I was happy to see a few people I knew - the people who adopted Elvis were there, and Diana - the lady who rescued Lacy, and Joanne - one of my co-workers, and several others as well. Thanks to all of you who made it out to support Heartland! And a very special thank you to Angie, the Heartland President, who puts so much effort into the event every year, and does a fabulous job. It seemed like everyone had fun, and we raised a lot of money to help us keep up with our vet bills!

Today was a crazy day for me. I should have known it was going to be a rough day when I woke up at 5:00am due to my husband's alarm clock going off. He's out of town for Army this weekend, and apparently forgot to shut off the alarm before he left. Okay, no big deal, I just hit the Off button and tried to go back to sleep. But 5 minutes later, it went off again. Hmm... apparently I hit the Snooze button, not the Off button. I can't figure out where the off button is in the dark, and if I get out of bed, the dogs will get up thinking its time to go out, and I'll have a hard time going back to sleep. Okay, I can solve this - I unplug the clock. Five minutes later, guess what - yep, the alarm goes off AGAIN. Apparently the thing has a battery backup. By this time I was NOT happy. I had to get up, turn on the light, and figure out how to end the annoying beeping sound. Remi, Lacy, Linguini and Murphy are all looking around trying to figure out what I'm doing - and of course Noelle is deaf so she slept through the whole thing! But then the dogs all get up, which wakes her up, and I end up having to go outside with them all, since Murphy doesn't like to go outside by himself, and Remi barks if left outside alone. Fifteen minutes later I go back to bed - again have to fight Remi for the covers, wait for the rest of the dogs and cat to settle in around me, and finally fall back asleep. Seems like only minutes later instead of a couple hours that my alarm goes off. So the day begins. It was then a rush to get everything done as usual - get the dogs outside, inside, fed, and outside again, then back in and crated. Quick trip to the vet to drop off stool samples and make sure the orange kittens can go to adoptions. Rush back home and pack up the crates and ex-pens, and get the dogs not going to PetSmart situated with bones or toys to keep them entertained while I'm gone. Track down the cats and pack them up. Load the cats, dogs, crates and supplies into the van, and head to PetSmart. Get there, and rush the cats inside since someone was waiting to meet my orange kittens. Set up crates, unload kittens, talk to a potential adopter, rush back to the car to unload and set up more crates outside, unload dogs, unload supplies, rush back inside to do adoption for Frito (hooray!), back outside to talk to someone about Lacy, back inside to drop off paperwork, back outside to talk to some other potential adopters, and so it goes. It finally slowed down after a bit, and by the time the day ended at 4pm, it was very quiet. We loaded back up the dogs into the cars, tore down all the crates, and headed home. Fortunately I live close - some people have to drive all the way out to Troy to take home their fosters - that makes for a very long day! After I got home and once again got the car unloaded and the dogs situated (outside, then inside, fed, then back out, then inside) I headed over to Frito's new home to drop off some medicine he needs to finish that I forgot to take to PetSmart with me. Then back home, to again let the dogs out, return some phone calls from people asking about my fosters, and then finally I could rest! Don't get me wrong, I love doing this, but days like today where I had a pet adopted (two actually!) make it so much better. Its the days that I do all this and don't get anyone adopted that are hard. I'm pretty lucky that I can foster so many animals, so I have more luck getting adoptions. Some of our foster volunteers have fewer fosters, so they might do this week after week, for cats or dogs, and not have an adoption in several months. :-( I know that has to be so disappointing. Sometimes people say "thanks for caring for these animals" or something along those lines, and it really feels good to have people recognize that. I don't know if other volunteers feel the same way, but for me if I don't have adoptions in awhile, its just nice to hear that my efforts to help these animals are appreciated. So next time you see a Heartland volunteer, please make sure to thank them for the work they put into saving animals. None of us get paid anything, and we all put in our own time, money and effort just to help animals get good homes, sometimes while listening to people complain or just exhibit a total lack of compassion for animals. So knowing there are people out there who actually appreciate what we do week after week really helps. And for those of you who haven't had an adoption in months, you know your fosters are lucky to have you, and the right home will come along! :-)

Pictures of fosters

As promised, I took pictures so I can get my new fosters on the website. However, as usual the pictures didn't turn out as well as I had hoped. Oh well, they'll do for now and maybe later I will get better ones. Here are pictures of my newest fosters:



First, here's Linguini. He's a gorgeous black cat that I fell in love with up at PetSmart. He was staying in one of the cat cages at PetSmart, hoping to find a home, but with Halloween quickly approaching, the black cats don't get to stay at PetSmart right now. So I asked his foster mom, and she kindly let me take him home with me. I put Blaze up at PetSmart instead, hoping that maybe he would find a home while Linguini is at my house. Once Halloween is over, I will take Linguini back to PetSmart, but in the meantime I am just loving having him around. I put him in the cat room and thought he might want to stay there for awhile, at least until he got used to all the other animals. But no, as soon as I left the room, he followed me out. The cat room is blocked off from the main part of the house with a baby gate, so the cats can go in and out over the gate, but the dogs can't go into the room. He immediately jumped the gate and braved all the other dogs in order to be in the same room as I am. I just love this cat! He follows me around everywhere, just like the dogs do, and jumps up on my lap whenever I sit down. All the dogs are scared of him now, which is pretty funny.







Next is my newest foster cat Jester. He's doing great. He just completely ignores all of the dogs, and he plays with the other cats, and he's so friendly. He purrs every time I pick him up. I feel a bit like the Pied Piper when I walk around the house, because now I'm followed from room to room by 4 dogs and 3 cats - every time I move! As someone who's used to not being noticed, its quite an ego trip to be so popular. :-)








Here are new pictures of Noelle. She always makes me smile, because the dog is only 4 months old and she acts like she's 10 years old! The only time I could guess she was so young is when she occasionally decides to play - she still has that puppy run and hop that is so cute. But 95% of the time she spends just laying around acting lazy. I have to admit, this is totally my speed of dog.







Here is a picture I took this morning - I was outside with the puppies, and in the window waiting for us were Lacy (basset hound), Astro (gray tabby) and Jester (cream tabby). They all wanted to come out and play too, but I didn't let them. :-)





Next is Pepsi, my little pit bull puppy. I wasn't very happy with the pictures I got of her. The only time she'd smile at me was when she was jumping up on me wanting to be picked up. I can't hold her and take a picture at the same time, so I finally put her on a tie-out so she couldn't run up to me. Then she just looked at me like "why are you mad at me?!".




And last is Ginger, my terrier mix puppy. She looks like a Jack Russell Terrier to me, but when I said this to the vet, he laughed at me. He said she's as big as a Jack Russell now, and she's only 11 weeks old! So I don't know if she has some Jack Russell in her, mixed with a bigger dog, or what - but she's a cutie!

Orange Kitten Update

My orange kittens - Frito, Cheeto and Nacho - went to the vet yesterday to get neutered. I was hoping they'd get a clean bill of health and get to go to adoptions on Saturday, but the news wasn't so good. They have coccidia, which is a common kitten problem. So they have to get treated for a week, and won't be able to go to PetSmart tomorrow. So I'll just be taking Lacy, Blaze and Astro again this week.

Things are starting to calm down a little bit at home, now that the newcomers have learned what to expect. Jester, the new cat, is doing great. The vet estimated he is one year old. He is very playful and affectionate, and every time I go into the room where he's staying, he comes to greet me and climbs on my lap to be petted. The two puppies - Ginger and Pepsi - are estimated to be 11 weeks and 12 weeks old, respectively. They are the same size, and about the same energy level, and they have a great time playing together. The have the basement to themselves, and they're doing much better now about not destroying their kennels. I have been able to get them out to play 3 times a day, and I think that helps a lot to keep them tired. :-) Noelle is staying upstairs with Lacy and Derby, and she's doing great. She gets along with the other dogs and cats, and is just so sweet. I can never move anywhere without tripping over her, because she sticks so close to me. The vet estimated her at 4 months old.

Hunter got here last night, and fits right in! He met all the dogs, except the puppies, last night, and did fine with all of them. He really likes to play with Derby and Lacy. He misses his family though - for the first 20 minutes after they left, he kept going to the window and whining, waiting for them. But I was able to distract him with some games and treats, and he settled down after a bit. He slept on the bed right next to me last night, and seemed to be in a good mood this morning. All the dogs got Kongs filled with peanut butter, carrots, and dog food before I left... sounds pretty gross to me, but the dogs really like it! :-)

More about my new fosters

I just had to share more about my new fosters. I still haven't taken any pictures, but I did find some pictures of the dogs from when they were at the shelter, so I will post those.

This is Noelle, my deaf pit bull puppy. She is such a great dog - I'm already thinking about adopting her myself. The problem is if I do that, it will be one less dog I can foster in the future. But I'm totally in love with her, so I'm not sure I will be able to give her up. She has a pretty bad cough right now, so she's on antibiotics, and I'm taking her to the vet this afternoon to get her checked out. She is just so loving - she constantly wants to lay at my feet. She's also very low energy - I'm not sure if that's just because she's not feeling well, or if that's her normal activity level, but I'm hoping its her normal activity level. :-) She just follows me around, and every time I stop she lays down by me, and then when I move she gets up and follows me again! She never jumps up on me, and she even appears to be housetrained. Most of the dogs I get to foster haven't had any training - they jump, and bark a lot, and have other undesired behaviors. So when I get one that is either already trained, or just naturally well behaved, I am always very happy. :-) Noelle appears to be a large dog in this picture, but she's actually not very big - around 27 pounds right now.



Next is Pepsi. She's also a pit bull puppy - very young I think, but I'll have to wait for the vet to give me an estimate. She is a very happy, very hyper little girl. She is always so excited to see someone, that she tries to jump into their arms, and her tail just goes crazy wagging! Her and Ginger are about the same size, and while at first Ginger was intimidated by Pepsi, now they're best friends. I let them play together and they have a great time wrestling and playing chase. Whenever I hold Pepsi she settles down and puts her head on my shoulder and cuddles up to me - its so cute. As you can see in this picture, she was scared - see how her mouth is closed, ears back, and the worried look in her eye? I am sure the shelter was a scary place for her to be!


And last is my little Jack Russel mix puppy - Ginger. The cutest dogs are generally the most annoying, and she fits that profile. :-) She is a very loving dog - she just has the ability to destroy her kennel! I have puppy pads in there, since the puppies are not housetrained and are too little to hold it while I'm at work all day. Pepsi is very good about using the puppy pads, and making cleanup easier. Ginger on the other hand, prefers to tear up the puppy pads and newspaper and leave a huge mess everywhere in the kennel to clean up. Other than that, she's a great dog. She has very soft fur, and she loves attention. She also is hilarious to watch when she gets a stuffed toy - she picks it up and shakes it back and forth - definitely a terrier! Again, in the picture below, you can see she was scared when they took it. I will try to get some pictures of the puppies looking happy soon! :-)



Lacy and Derby are still doing well. They both went on long walks last night and walked very well on the leash - no pulling, or at least not much. They're having fun playing together, and I think Lacy will miss Derby once he's gone.

Introducing Noelle, Pepsi, Ginger and Jester

I only went to the shelter to pick out one... maybe two at the very most. Somehow in the past two days I came home with three new dogs and one cat. The two new puppies are rather time intensive, so I haven't been able to take pictures of anyone yet. I'm hoping this weekend I will have time. I spent last night and this morning getting them bathed, fed and settled in. Well, I didn't bathe the cat - i'm not that crazy. But for those of you who voted to hear more details of fostering, here's how the two days went at my house.

Noelle, my new white pit bull puppy, came home from the shelter on Monday night. I left her in the car while I went inside and let Derby and Lacy out in the backyard. Then I put Remi in the bedroom, and carried Noelle into the house, and straight to the bathtub. I like to give them baths before they touch anything just in case they're carrying any germs or viruses. She got a bath, which she didn't particularly like, and then got to come out and meet my husband. He wasn't happy about me bringing home a deaf dog, but once he met her he fell in love just like I did. She then went down to the basement to hang out with him, while I let the other dogs back in upstairs, and the night proceeded with a pretty normal schedule (feeding, playing, etc). When I went down to check on her later, she was curled up on a blanket, looking very content. The great thing about her being deaf is she is happy to hang out in the basement while my husband is working. He is finishing the basement (putting up walls, building a bar, etc) and it is a noisy place to be, but she didn't mind at all! :-)
Yesterday I left work and went to the shelter where I got Noelle to return a leash I had borrowed. I then saw five cats that were going to be put down this morning. I couldn't leave them there! But I couldn't take them either - my husband really dislikes cats. I also only had one cat playpen where I could quarantine a cat while it was being prepared for adoption. So, I picked out one that I fell in love with the moment I saw him, and took him in spite of what my husband wanted. I then cried over another cat that was so sweet and loving that I couldn't take. He was a long haired white cat, and reminded me a lot of Spock, one of my own cats that died in the past year. Another Heartland volunteer who was at the shelter with me must have felt sorry for him, and for me, and took him home with her. So thanks to her, we were able to save two of those cats that wouldn't be alive right now otherwise. I've named the cat I took home Jester. He is a cinnamon colored cat. He seems very friendly and purrs when I pet him or hold him. That's about all I know about him so far! :-)
Once I left that shelter, I went to the other shelter where I had signed up for two dogs previously. I got them both - one is a female pit bull puppy, dark brindle, with lots of energy - I've named her Pepsi. The other is a female Jack Russell Terrier mix puppy - she is super sweet, kind of shy, and so cute! The shelter had named her Ginger, so I'm keeping that name. She is white with brown patches. So the cat and both dogs came home with me last night. Once again, they waited in the car while I went in and let out the other dogs. Then Jester came in and went into the extra cat playpen. Both puppies got baths, and neither of them appreciated it very much. They are now in separate exercise pens in the basement, during their "quarantine". This is my least favorite part of bringing home new fosters - I just hate quarantining them. But, I don't want the other dogs or cats to get sick either, so I do understand the need for it. Hopefully this week will go by quickly.
Hunter will be here tomorrow night - I can't wait to see him again. I am already counting on him being my footwarmer at night - he always used to sleep at the end of the bed and keep my feet warm for me, so I'm hoping he does that again. :-) And then this weekend is PetSmart, and I'm hoping my orange kittens will be ready to go get adopted. They go to the vet tomorrow, so we'll see!

New dogs on the way!

I was going to wait until I had pictures, but I just can never wait to share happy news! I have a new foster dog, and one or two more on the way. I am so excited. :-)

Remi got his stitches out and got a clean bill of health from the vet, so he's officially back to normal now! Derby was supposed to be adopted on Sunday, but his new family decided to hold off for a few more days while they finish putting up their fence. I just hope they get it finished soon, since he's staying with me until they do! Since I only have one official foster dog (Lacy, the basset hound) I decided another trip to the shelter was needed. Of course, the adorable dogs there sucked me in and instead of leaving with one, I signed up to take two. Then after I left, another volunteer called me - she'd contacted another shelter that was going to have to euthanize animals soon, and they had a dog she thought was perfect for me. I immediately thought "oh no, I'm going to hear about this dog and have to turn it down, knowing it will be euthanized, because I just committed to these other dogs". Then she told me about this dog, and sure enough, it was perfect for me. It's a pit bull mix puppy and it is deaf. I love pit bull puppies - they've been some of the very best dogs I've fostered. And I always want to save the deaf ones. So, I decided that since she was going to that shelter anyway to look at some other dogs, I might as well meet her there and check out this puppy. So, guess who came home with me last night? An adorable, all white, deaf pit bull puppy! And she is so sweet - very calm and loving. She'd been picked up as a stray and been living at the shelter for the past month. She's about 3 months old now. I am so glad that the other volunteer called and found out about her, or she probably would have been euthanized. That shelter is not allowed to adopt pit bulls out to the public, due to city regulations, so if a rescue group doesn't take them, they are killed. There's another one there (not deaf) that I really wanted to take also, but if I did I would be homeless I think. So I'm hoping someone else will save him.

I'm going back to the first shelter this afternoon to pick up the two dogs I already signed up for. One is a brindle pit bull puppy - super high energy! The other is a jack russell terrier mix - very quiet and shy and such a cute dog. I may also end up with a cocker spaniel puppy that was there - not sure about that yet. Fortunately a volunteer offered to keep the jack russell terrier mix for a while if needed (if my husband threatens to leave me). :-) I will post pictures of everyone soon!