Wags and Wrigley and Zoe were adopted!

It's been a crazy couple of weeks as I've been trying to get the new house ready to move into. I'm hoping to move in within the next week or two, and then I'll be able to start fostering again, and blogging more often. Fortunately all of my fosters have been adopted, except for Ziggy who is still away at rehab. He's doing well and will hopefully be released soon! Here are some of the recent adoptions we've had:

Zoe
My previous pit bull mix puppy foster was adopted over a week ago, and so far, so good.

That basically means I haven't received a phone call from the adopter wanting to return her - yet.  Whew.

Her littermate Venture (a.k.a. Scary Puppy) has now been renamed Mia and is in another foster home, where she is doing great and being spoiled!  Here is Mia attending a parade with her foster family:

Guess she's not so scary when she's all dressed up!

My friend Bev, the craziest most wonderful foster person I know, took in eight Chesapeake Bay/Labrador Retriever mix puppies recently, and they were ready for adoption this past weekend, at the same time as Wags and Wrigley.  She knew I couldn't make it to adoptions last weekend because I was working on the house, so she kept Wags and Wrigley, along with her eight foster puppies, all weekend and took them to three adoption events!  That's right - she gave up her ENTIRE weekend - Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday, to hold adoption events at a local PetSmart to try to find the puppies homes.  And it paid off, because by the end of the day on Sunday, all ten puppies had been adopted, along with one adult foster dog. It was incredible.  Did I mention she's crazy wonderful?  In addition to the three day adoption event, she also attended/worked at a fundraiser for All Paws on Saturday night, and temporarily kept another six puppies and one adult all weekend for another foster mom who had to go out of town.  I am in awe of her, and can't quite understand how she stays sane, but I am glad she does!  Thanks to her, a lot of puppies are now happily living in new homes, including Wags and Wrigley.

Wags, being held by a volunteer at an adoption event on Friday night.

One of the Chesapeake Bay Retriever/Lab mix puppies

Another Chessie/Lab puppy - 8 weeks old.

The puppies were worn out after 3 adoption events in a row!

She's Back...

Venture was returned yesterday.  She was a little too much for the little girl in the family, so we decided she would be better in a home with some older kids.  She went back to her first foster home to be with her sister Zoe, and they seem very happy to be back together again.  

These pictures of Venture are from the adoption event last week.  She was practicing her cutest "please adopt me" looks.  I think she was doing a pretty good job!

Venture was Adopted!

My foster puppy Venture was adopted on Saturday.  And Zoe went back to her first foster home since she's big enough now to start being house-trained, so both of my puppies are gone.  This was a typical activity for the puppies while they were here:

They loved chasing each other through the house, and often ran in circles behind the couch, through the dining room, and back through into the living room.  

I really miss my puppies, but I think they may have had a bit too much energy for Noelle.  She would typically take refuge in the chair while they did their puppy zoomies around the house, and she just watched them as they went by, again and again.  

Here they come again!

Finally they stopped racing in circles and she could take a much-deserved nap.

Baby-sitting is hard work!

Miss Popularity

I am a middle child.  I have one sister who is a year older and one sister who is two years younger.  My sisters have always been my closest friends.  They've also always been more outgoing than me.  They were both cheerleaders in college, and had large groups of friends growing up.  I was more of a loner.  So often when there is more than one dog around, I tend to gravitate to the shyest of the bunch.  Or in cases where their behavior is the same, I often feel a stronger connection with the less "popular" dog.  I am a bit surprised that in the case of my foster puppies, there has been such a large difference in popularity.  Although they look almost identical and act almost identical (nicknames not withstanding), Venture has received a lot more interest than Zoe at last weekend's adoption events and online.  So far Venture has received three adoption inquiries at events and two online applications.  Zoe has not received any inquiries or applications.  And although I am pretty sure that Zoe would not mind being less popular than her sister, I've still decided not to tell her.  She'll find out soon enough how hard it is to be a black pit bull mix dog in this world. 


Venture, aka "Miss Popularity"



Zoe

 There is a lot of work to be done in educating people about pit bulls. During last weekend's adoption event, one potential adopter came up to us oohing and aahing over the puppies, but stating that she was looking for an adult that would be a good cuddle companion. We suggested a couple of possibilities, and one of them was a pit bull. When we showed her a picture of the dog, she immediately backed away and firmly stated "I do NOT want any pit bulls". I may have sounded a bit smug as I pointed out that the puppies she was so crazy about were pit bull mixes. Most people, me included, change their mind about pit bulls after they actually meet them and spend some time with them. In this case, the lady couldn't believe the puppies were part pit bull because they didn't act like her idea of a pit bull. I wish she understood that pit bulls can be some of the best cuddle companions out there. Right now, Venture and Zoe are young enough and cute enough that they will hopefully be easy to adopt out. But for all the black pit bull mix dogs in the shelters that are no longer 9 or 10 week old puppies, being a pit bull mix, and being black on top of it, is enough to cause an almost immediate death sentence. I hope that Zoe and Venture will continue to change people's minds about pit bulls as they grow up.

They Were Not My Puppies

I heard about two puppies, dropped off at a local vet's office when they were just four weeks old. I knew that was much too young for puppies to be away from their mother. They should have still been nursing, and needed their mom to learn proper dog behavior and discipline between the ages of four and eight weeks. But there they were, homeless and out of options. The vet's office found someone to keep them for a few weeks until the rescue group I volunteer with had room. Then when the President of our rescue had room, she took them in. Unfortunately, two of her other foster dogs decided that the puppies made excellent chew toys. That's where I come in. I have been unable to foster (except for the special exemption we got to keep Ziggy) due to subdivision restrictions on number of pets. But young puppies that can stay in a spare bedroom and never be seen or heard? I decided those are exempt too. Especially if I'm just dog-sitting them for a few days. So when I heard about the case of the Puppy Chew Toys, I jumped in to help.



Tucker - likes to make puppies scream!



Tucker is one of the foster dogs that was using the puppies as a chew toy. He wasn't trying to hurt them, and in fact didn't hurt them - but he did like to pin them down and listen to them scream. And if you thought Noelle was bad? You should hear these puppies cry! They had enough challenges facing them with being separated from their mom so early, so we thought they'd be better off at my house for awhile, assuming I could keep them away from the Zigster.

 

So a few weeks ago I brought home Scary Puppy and Good Puppy, and made it VERY clear to their real foster mom that I was only a temporary holding facility. I would regularly e-mail her with updates that started with the subject line: YOUR puppies... and make sure that anytime I referred to them, I didn't use their names, just the phrase YOUR puppies.  I think she got the message. Unfortunately, I didn't. In spite of refusing to claim them as my foster dogs, I somehow went and fell in love with these two puppies. We quickly fell into a routine. They stay in the ex-pen in the extra bedroom while I'm at work, and then at night, after everything else is done, I block off the kitchen from the other dogs and they get to run around and have play time, followed by cuddle time on my lap. They're now nine weeks old and ready for adoption, and in spite of all my statements to the contrary, I want to claim these puppies as my fosters. Basically this just means that I'll be responsible for any follow-up with their adoptive homes, and if they ever have to be returned to rescue, I'll take them back and foster them again until they can be adopted. There are a couple of reasons I didn't want to claim these as my own fosters. The first was my worry that due to being taken away from their mom so early, they may have some behavioral issues as they grow. I'm happy to say that so far I haven't seen any signs of that. The second worry is that trying to adopt out a big black dog that looks like a pit bull is not at all easy, and if these pups are ever returned, I could have them for quite awhile. If they have developed behavioral issues in the meantime due to a lack of training or socialization, that would be a real challenge. So I was trying to be selfish and cautious and avoid future responsibility for these puppies that I had never originally planned to rescue. But they went and stole my heart, and now if they do ever have to be returned, I want to take them back to make sure that they are safe and well cared for and loved. I know that their first foster mom would take excellent care of them, and if I'm full with fosters at the time I get any return, she's always the first person I call. But in spite of my best efforts, I now feel responsible for these two little girls. No, more than that, I feel so much love for these two that I WANT them at my house - now and in the future - at least until the right adoptive home can be found. So I'm hoping that their original foster mom will let me claim these two as my own fosters, even after all the e-mails I sent her reminding her that they were actually her fosters. If they're not adopted quickly they may have to go back to her house for awhile since they're getting big enough to start being housetrained. But no matter where they go - another foster home, or an adoptive home - in my heart they are now and will always be MY puppies.



Zoe (aka MY puppy)



Venture (aka MY puppy)

The Mystery Screams

There's a mystery afoot.  It's up to you to figure out the culprit.  I'm going to help you out though, by giving you a hint.  First, I can tell you who is NOT the culprit.  It is not Good Puppy. 

Zoe, aka Good Puppy

 And surprisingly, it's also not Scary Puppy. 

Venture (aka Spunky Puppy, aka Scary Puppy)

Beyond that, it's up to you to determine the culprit.  Please, listen to the video below.  You will hear dogs barking, and then you will hear another creature making noises that I can't even describe.  Who do YOU think is making those noises?