Updates and Adoptions

I’m sorry that I’ve been too busy to update my blog lately! Somehow I’ve ended up with eight foster dogs and a constantly changing number of kittens and cats, which keeps me too busy to write posts or take pictures. So today I’m going to play “catch up” and give you the condensed status of my foster pets:

Scamp the Fox Terrier mix, Socks the cat, and Thor the giant German Shepherd Dog have all been adopted. I still have Charlie the unknown mixed breed who is frightened of new people and barks at them non-stop. I also still have Bogey the Mostly Hairless dog who is frightened of all people, including me. Not surprisingly, I still have Ziggy the deaf and difficult pit bull mix, although he is currently on a two week vacation at a friend’s house, where he gets to be an only dog and go for walks in the park and have a real life. I also have Aridan the German Shepherd Dog who I am dog-sitting for a friend. She used to be a well-trained dog. Now she ignores me constantly, counter surfs, jumps over baby gates to eat the cat food, and chews up metal cans full of spray cheese. Don’t tell her human mom, but I think I ruined her dog. In addition to all of these dogs, I still have Chief, the Beagle. He’s my only “highly adoptable” dog. He’s also my favorite of all my fosters, and the easiest dog I have, so I’m sure he’ll be adopted soon.

Minnie - aka "Bitey Girl"

I took in a few new dogs. It turns out they all have issues. One dog – an eight month old Chihuahua/Doxie mix - was given to me by my neighbors when a family member went to jail and the dog was left without a home. Her issue is called fear aggression. I am calling her Bitey Girl. She’s going to a new foster home tomorrow with someone who actually likes working with little aggressive dogs. I’m very grateful.



Another dog is an Italian Greyhound that was a breeder release. I named her Fawn, and she is terrified of me (it seems to be a theme with my foster dogs lately) and won’t let me touch her. She is only going to stay with me until another foster home can be found. Charlie and Bogey are enough shy dogs for me.

Fawn the Italian Greyhound

A third dog I took in is a brindle pit bull named Mayzie. Her issue is the opposite of fear. She is a typical joyful, excited, highly energetic pit bull. She really doesn’t have any issues except that she is a hard-to-adopt breed.



Mayzie the brindle pittie

And the last dog that I unexpectedly took in is Jupiter. He’s a pit bull mix, and he was given to me by a friend of my neighbors, because the original owner was planning to shoot him and the guy didn’t want to see that happen. He couldn’t keep him but didn’t want him to be shot, so he ended up in my driveway. And now he’s living in my house. And he is capturing my heart. I can write a whole post about Jupiter, if I ever find the time. He has several issues, including being heartworm positive, and having an extremely high prey drive, but I love him anyway.

Jupiter - a dog with issues

As for the cat fosters, I still have Midnight and Murphy, the two FIV+ cats. I had nine kittens and their mom, who have all moved to a shelter for adoption, but then three of them came back because they weren’t big enough to be spayed yet. I also ended up with five more kittens who will be going to the shelter in another week or two. I have sworn to never ever take in any more kittens – at least for the next month.


So that’s my story – I don’t usually do this, but today I’m begging for foster homes to help out with some of these animals. Like most rescue animals, these foster pets do not come already trained. Most of them aren’t house-trained. Most of them will climb on your furniture and try to steal food from your countertops. As foster parents, our job is to work with these animals and make them more adoptable. We work on house-training, and we work on behavior issues like counter surfing. We also work on self-control, for the highly excitable dogs, and on overcoming their fear, for the shy dogs. We truly make a difference in these dogs’ lives, because we aren’t just “warehousing” them until someone comes along and adopts them and fixes their issues themselves, we’re actually working to make them more adoptable with each interaction. Foster homes that have only one foster pet are ideal, since they have more interaction with each foster pet. Right now I have too many foster pets that need some extra help to overcome issues, and they each need someone to step forward and say “I am willing to help.” I’m not the only one with too many foster pets. Rescue groups and shelters around the country are overflowing with homeless animals. They all need help. I can honestly say that fostering is the most rewarding thing that I’ve ever done in my life. I hope that you find that is true for you too.  To find out more about fostering, please contact me. 

Cows, Socks, and Flower

You may remember my fascination with cows.  In fact, when I first moved to the country and ended up with a field full of cows living next door, I had a lot of questions.  I've been here over a year now, and finally - FINALLY - I found someone to answer my questions about cows.  Thanks to Debbie, a blogger and a cattle rancher in Kansas, who explained to me the reason that Ziggy and my next door neighbors will most likely never be best friends.  Debbie recently won the "America's Farmers Farm Mom of the Year" award for 2012.  Congratulations Debbie!  Be sure to stop by and visit her blog for a look at life on a cattle ranch, and to have all of your cow questions answered.

In addition to learning about cows, I've also been learning more about cats.  And to help with my cat education, I brought home two new foster cats a few weeks ago.  I met Socks while stopping by my neighbor's house to discuss which animals they were wanting me to rehome.  As we stood there talking, a small brown tabby cat came walking straight up to me and began weaving around my legs.  I picked her up, and she immediately began purring.   I hadn't planned to take home any cats that day, but when I met Socks I just fell in love. 


Socks

In addition to Socks, the neighbors pointed out a very small black and white cat who they also wanted to rehome.  They had named her Skunk, because she had a white stripe down her back and did somewhat resemble a skunk.  However I was concerned about trying to find a home for a cat with the name Skunk - people may think she smelled bad!  So I renamed her Flower ("You can call me Flower if you want to!" - name that movie) and brought her home too.  She is every bit as sweet as Socks, and she doesn't smell bad at all.   

Flower

Update:  Since Socks and Flower came to my house a few weeks ago, they've been spayed, vaccinated, microchipped, and all that good stuff, and then they started going to adoption events.  Within a week, Flower was adopted and Socks has now moved up to PetSmart where I hope she will quickly be adopted as well.