Dolly is gone

Dolly went to her new home yesterday. I am very happy for her, but very sad for me. It’s hard to let her go, especially after fostering her for such a long time. I hope to get another foster dog soon, since it reminds me of why I’m doing this. Every dog I can foster makes room to save another dog from being put to sleep. If I kept Dolly, I wouldn’t be able to foster another dog, since my husband imposed a two-dog limit on our house. And I love being able to save them, so that makes it easier to let her go to her new home.

Choosing the Right Home

Today we received another application for Dolly, and this one sounds very promising. The lady had seen her on our website, and has been looking for a border collie mix to give her 5-month-old border collie puppy a playmate. I will hate to see Dolly leave, but I’m excited that she may find her forever home. It’s scary to be the one responsible for deciding if this home is right for the dog you’ve been fostering. What if I approve someone to adopt one of my foster dogs, and then they don’t take care of him or her? Or they abuse the dog, or give it away to someone else who won’t take care of it? What if they leave it chained up outside? I invest so much time and energy and love, and I want to make sure that whomever adopts my foster dog is going to love her as much as I do.

Update on Dolly

When I decided to foster for Heartland, I was asked to be willing to bring the foster dog up to PetSmart for their adoption days at least once a month. The more time the dogs spend at PetSmart, the better their chances of getting adopted. While the dogs bio and picture are posted on the website, that can’t compare with the actual impact meeting the dog can have on a potential adopter. So although its been a busy time of year, I’ve been trying to get up to PetSmart at least every other week to help Dolly find a home. There have been several applications submitted for her, but so far none of them has been the right home. Every time I go to PetSmart, employees and regular customers come over and say “She’s still here?! I can’t believe she hasn’t been adopted yet!” It’s an interesting puzzle, trying to figure out why some dogs get adopted immediately and others never do. In Dolly’s case, she has a lot going for her. She’s a very cute dog with a great temperament. She’s not completely house-broken, and she does have the ability to jump tall fences in a single bound, so that may hamper her in finding a home. But she gets along great with all people, with all other animals, and has no serious issues. So what is she still doing in a foster home? My theory is that because she takes awhile to warm up to people, she loses that instant bond that so many people feel with homeless animals. If you meet two dogs that need a home, and one looks at you longingly and licks your face, while the other doesn’t even seem to notice you’re there, who would you want to adopt? But what I tell people is what she’s like after she gets to know you. She follows me from room to room, always wanting to be with me. She is eager to please me and wants nothing more than to be by my side and shower me with affection. This didn’t happen until after I’d taken her home and spent some time with her. But for people considering adopting her, they don’t have that luxury so I think this hurts her chances of finding a home.

Heartland Meeting

I attended my first official Heartland meeting tonight. It was interesting to meet all of the volunteers at the meeting. I was impressed with how organized they are, and how much time and energy they devote to saving homeless dogs and cats. I look forward to getting to know everyone better.

Dolly's first week

Dolly is doing great at our house. We took her and Remi to the Florissant Fall Festival yesterday. Of course Remi got a lot of attention, as most 125+ pound dogs do! But Dolly also got attention, and with her “adopt me” vest on, there were several people who were interested in her. I hope one of them works out, but I really love her already so I’m happy if she stays with us for a bit longer too.

First Adoption Event

Today I attended my first adoption event at PetSmart. The Heartland volunteers go up to PetSmart every Saturday with dogs that need to find homes. Their dedication is amazing. I attended my first full adoption event, and tried to learn how everything worked. There were many more people at the store than I expected. A lot of people had questions about the dogs, and a few of the dogs even got adopted!

We brought home Dolly today. Actually I almost brought home a basset hound named Jesse instead. Jesse would not have made a good playmate for Remi, but she was having a hard time at the main dog foster mom’s house, and we thought she’d be much happier in a quieter home. I spent several hours planning on taking Jesse home, and enjoying petting her very long soft ears. However, then some people came in who decided to adopt Jesse, so once again I was back to fostering Dolly. Not that I minded! Dolly seems to be a very sweet, very good dog. She met Remi up at PetSmart and they got to play together to make sure they’d get along okay. They did GREAT together. I hope they get along this well at home.

Lost Dog!

I have heard of many people losing a dog, and occasionally have seen loose dogs wandering around, but now that I’m getting so much braver around dogs, I’ve actually rescued a lost dog! On my way home from work last night I saw a chocolate lab wandering down a busy street. He seemed unaware of the cars or the danger, so I pulled over. I asked some people nearby if he belonged to them, but they said no, and they thought he was lost because he’d been out there for awhile. I then proceeded to follow him around for 15 minutes since he had no interest in coming to me. Finally, since I was so close to home, I left him and went home and got some dog treats. When I got back to where I left him, he was still there, still playing in traffic! I coaxed him into my car with the dog treats and took him home. He had no tags, so we made a quick trip up to PetSmart to check for a micro-chip. It was registered to a vet clinic, but they were closed for the evening, so the lab got to spend the night in our garage. We did introduce him to Remi, and I was relieved that Remi did so well with him. I was a little worried about fostering dogs because I wasn’t sure how Remi would react to sharing his home with strange dogs. This morning, I called the vet clinic before work, and they got a hold of the dog’s owners. Apparently the dog (named Rocco) got away through a gate that was left open, and had left a very worried family behind. They were very happy to get him back. Lesson learned: If you have a pet, PLEASE make sure he has tags on with your phone number on them!

My First Foster

The people from Heartland have been amazing. They made me feel welcome and have patiently been answering my many questions about fostering. I’m very excited to bring home my first foster dog on Saturday. Her name is Dolly, and she is a border-collie/terrier mix. Here is a picture of her:

I am also going to be volunteering for my first dog transport Saturday. Dog transport is another type of volunteer work that I came across while reading about dogs on the Internet. There are many dogs and cats out there that are in kill shelters, and if they can’t find a home or rescue group to take them, they will be put to sleep. Sometimes there are rescue groups or foster homes that have room for them, but they are several cities, or even several states away. So volunteers work together to transport the dogs and cats from their current shelter to the rescue organization. One person organizes the whole thing, and divides the trip into small sections, usually just 60 miles or so. Then they post that transport list, and anyone who is available to help transport signs up for a section. This Saturday I’ll be traveling to Columbia, MO to pick up a Shih Tzu and deliver it back to O’Fallon MO. From there it will be continuing, via several different volunteers, all the way to Tennessee!

How It Started

I’m not sure what made me decide to foster dogs. I guess it started several months ago, when we adopted Remi. My husband had been wanting us to get another dog for several years, but I had been putting it off as long as possible. Dogs were okay, but I was more of a cat person. Besides, I wasn’t ready for the large amount of work that I knew would come along with a dog. In addition to the normal daily feeding, and the dog hair, dogs required walking and cleaning up after and a lot more attention than I thought I wanted to give. At least, that was until we got Remi. Since my husband wanted a BIG dog, I started researching dog breeds. He was leaning toward a Mastiff, but they kind of scared me, so I looked for something else that would fit us and our lifestyle and still be really BIG. That’s how we decided on a Great Dane. Danes are known to be laid-back, great with children, low energy dogs. They are one of the few breeds known as “gentle giants”. That sounded perfect! So we adopted a 1-year-old Great Dane from a local Great Dane rescue group.

And that was the end of life without dogs for me. It took awhile, but I eventually stopped being scared of Remi’s big size and bigger bark! I did a lot of reading on how to train dogs, and learned how to communicate with them. I also learned in the process how many dogs are out there that don’t have a safe place to stay, or someone to love. So I talked to my husband, and convinced him that Remi needed a playmate. And then I applied to be a foster home with the Heartland Humane Society of Missouri.