I just have to say....

Fostering puppies can be very draining.

Ziggy chews

He chews a lot.  All attempts to redirect his chewing to specific objects like dog toys seem to end in failure.  Although many methods have been tried to reduce his desire to chew on prohibited items, the success rate of these methods leaves a lot to be desired.  For example, please note Ziggy's choice of chew toy this evening.

Can you read the label?  Here is a closer look.

That's right.  The Premium No Chew Spray apparently tastes quite yummy to Ziggy.  In fact, when he is really enjoying something, he closes his eyes while he chews.  And once he chewed off the top of the spray bottle, he began chewing with his eyes closed. 

Apparently the No Chew Spray has received the Ziggy stamp of approval as an enjoyable treat.  Who knew!  

Losing

After the recent house offer fell through, I received some more bad news. The subdivision will not allow me any more time to keep the foster animals, so they all must go. Only Remi and Noelle can stay. I am losing all of my fosters as well as my own cat. Rudy and Tripoli will go back to the original foster homes they came from. My cat Merlin will go to live with my parents. Ziggy may be going to a temporary foster home. And Gretchen loses the most. She has been at a shelter for almost a month now, and can't stay much longer since she is having trouble in the shelter environment. Since I have no idea when I'll be able to take her, and we haven't been able to find another foster home for her, she will lose her life. 

I am also worried about Ziggy. There is one person who offered a temporary foster home for him, but it may be several months before I am able to move and take him back, and if he doesn't work out at that foster home, he will have limited options. He is not an easy dog, and he would probably not do well in a shelter or boarding situation long-term. Long-term foster homes are in high demand and the few people I know who are willing to take on a deaf chewy pit bull are already full or have other pets that make it a bad fit. I am not giving up on him, and hopefully he will work out in his termporary foster home, but I admit I am concerned. One of my rescue friends already offered to help with boarding costs if needed. I live in the metro St. Louis area, and there are a lot of boarding facilities here. I am thinking perhaps he can just stay at one boarding facility until he is kicked out, and then sent on to the next one. Kind of like a rich kid who continually gets kicked out of all the boarding schools he attends. It's an option. If it comes to that I may be taking up a collection to pay for his tuition boarding fees. For now I will hope he is on his best behavior in his temporary foster home! The house search continues, and in the meantime I am blessed to have so many friends who are willing to step in and help however they can. Special thank yous to Bev, Chuck, Heather, Linda, Mom and Dad, for all you've done and all you've offered to do to help in this awful situation!

Puppy News

Before I talk about my puppies, I wanted to let you know of another foster blog that I recently discovered. 
From Shelter 2 Home is the blog of a teenage foster volunteer for Jacksonville Humane Society.  She currently is fostering three adorable puppies, and is doing a great job helping to save lives.  Please stop by and thank her for the work she is doing! 

Poky

Now on to news of my puppies.  Panda Bear and Poky are part of a litter of six pups. They came from southern Oklahoma, but I am working hard to turn them into proper Missouri dogs. The puppies were born and lived under an empty beach house. When the puppies were rescued they were covered with fleas and had many spots of missing hair due to the flea bites. Their rescuer got them needed medical care and then brought them to us so we could help them find homes. They should be ready to be spayed/neutered in a few weeks and then will be ready for adoption. Since there were six puppies, we found two other rescue volunteers who agreed to each take two puppies as fosters. As young as they are, it's not good for the puppies to be alone, so by keeping them with at least one sibling in foster care they can still learn proper dog behavior from each other. I'll share some updates/pictures on the other puppies soon. In fact, I should warn you now that you will probably see nothing except puppy pictures and puppy stories on my blog for the foreseeable future. I apologize in advance. If you get tired of puppies, please return in a few weeks when I will maybe have taken a picture of something or someone other than another puppy. Maybe.

Panda Bear

I took these pictures when I took them to my mom's house to meet my neices and nephew. It is very important for young puppies between 6 and 16 weeks of age to meet as many new and different people and situations as they can. This is true, but it is also a good excuse to take the puppies places to show them off. By the way, I didn't tell my husband I was bringing these puppies home. I waited until he noticed them and asked me about them. Then I said "what puppies? I don't know what you're talking about." But he didn't believe me. So I changed tactics and said "they aren't puppies, they are guinea pigs." They are about the same size as guinea pigs, so I thought it was worth a try. He didn't fall for that either. But incidentally, my three year old nephew did, and when his parents said something about the puppy he was holding, he informed them that it wasn't a puppy, it was a guinea pig! Or maybe he was trying the same trick in hopes that his parents would let him keep a guinea pig.

And now I'd like to share with you a brief compilation of playful Poky puppy pictures.

Introducing Poky and Panda Bear

I received some bad news about the house I was purchasing.  To make a long story short, during the appraisal it was discovered that the house was a different type than was originally thought, and that caused a change in the type of financing I could get and therefore I am not going to be purchasing that house after all.  I was very disappointed, so when I received an e-mail less than an hour later asking if I could help with some puppies, I decided to just say yes!  A "puppy fix" was exactly what I needed to make me feel better - and to give me the motivation to keep searching for another home.

So yesterday I brought home Poky and Panda Bear.  They are only six weeks old.  Poky looks a bit like the puppy in the famous children's book The Poky Little Puppy.  He acts like him too - compared to his sister, he is a lot slower, more laid back, and likes to go off on his own to explore.  Panda Bear is more outgoing, friendly and playful.  They are both wonderful, and have definitely cheered me up.

Favorite Foster Pet Video

In January 2009 I brought home a four pound pit bull puppy.  I named her Boo, and I took this video of her barking at me so I would let her out of her pen.  The funny part is not her bark (although I think that's pretty cute too) it's her ears.  Watch her ears...

Update on my fosters

I decided it was time for another update on my fosters, so I you someone can keep track of who is at my house and why. In addition to my two dogs (Remi and Noelle) and one cat (Merlin), I have the following foster pets:

Ziggy - A deaf pit bull mix who has lived with me since December, when I rescued him from being euthanized at a shelter. Ziggy just turned one year old. He hasn't yet outgrown his puppy chewing stage, but he is slowly making progress. Ziggy is a comedian - he is always doing something silly to make me laugh. He is house-trained but can't be trusted alone in the house unsupervised because he is sure to get in some sort of trouble, whether it's stealing food from the counter, drinking a beer, or chewing up furniture or blinds. He is a one-dog wrecking machine, and I constantly threaten to send him to another foster home, but really I love him and will have a very hard time letting him go once he gets adopted. He has learned a lot of hand signs and is one of the smartest dogs I've worked with recently.

Tripoli - A German Shepherd/Aussie mix who has been in foster care since May of 2009. I took him to my house a few months ago because his foster mom wasn't able to get him to adoptions. We had hoped if he could go to some adoption events, someone would quickly adopt him. After all, he's practically perfect. He is around 3 years old, and has wonderful house manners, and gets along with dogs, cats, and kids! What more could anyone ask for? You might think that there are a lot of perfect dogs like Tripoli out there, but he's extra special because he only has three legs. This makes him lighter on his feet, and therefore faster and able to jump higher than other dogs. It's true - he can outrun and outjump all of the other dogs.

Rudy - A cat. I believe he's been in foster care for a couple of years now. I've had him since February, and I've finally trained him to not try to sneak out the door anymore. Okay not really - I think he really just doesn't try to sneak out the door because he's tired of the dogs chasing him all the time. He has given up escaping his prison and now is beginning to demand to be transferred back to a previous prison foster home. We're currently in negotiations. I've offered him his own room at the new house with canned food twice a week if he stops complaining, but he's holding out for something better!




And those are my only foster pets! I believe this is the shortest foster list I will have for a Very Long Time. I am constantly looking around the house for another dog or cat, thinking I forgot someone, but I didn't! I had to stop taking any new pets in until I get moved, so at least for the rest of this month, I will not be taking in anyone new. But as soon as I move, I'll go get Gretchen.

I also realized that I've been very lax in updating what has been happening with my foster pets, so here is an update for a few of my previous fosters in case you were wondering about them. Mia, the brown tabby cat who had been staying up at one of our adoption locations was adopted. Victoria the shy cat is being fostered by another volunteer who is working with her to hopefully make her more adoptable. Simon and Sampson  who were out on a trial adoption are now permanently adopted. And Lucas, now named Elwood, was also adopted out with Jake, another cat from the same rescue. Also my foster dog Bosco is currently out on a trial adoption! I am holding his spot open - he still has some house-training issues - but his new dad says he's going to keep working with him until Bosco figures it out, so hopefully this will be a permanent placement.  I also took in one more cat - another return - named Bugsy.  Then I immediately shipped him off to another foster home.  I will hopefully get him back once I move, but then Rudy might have to share his private room, and I'm not sure that's going to be acceptable to him.

Wordless Wednesday

Introducing Gretchen

She's not mine yet... but I'm counting the days. I wrote about Gretchen recently here, and at the time I was concerned because I was pretty sure she was going to have to be euthanized. The shelter didn't think she'd pass her behavior evaluation, and suggested if I wanted to save her I needed to come get her pretty quickly. I was prepared for the worst, but felt that I would be failing her if I didn't at least go and see her for myself. So I drove out there last Friday and cautiously introduced myself to Gretchen. I'm not very brave when it comes to aggressive dogs. I have spent most of my life being afraid of dogs (how embarrassing - but true!) so approaching a dog that I really expected to growl and snap at me was a little bit nerve-wracking. So you can imagine my surprise when I walked up to the kennel of a dog who was loosely wagging her tail, smiling with an open mouth, and generally acting very friendly through the bars of her cage. The volunteer who took me to meet Gretchen left to find a place for me to interact with her, and I used the time to bribe Gretchen with a few beef jerky treats - just to make sure she knew I really was her friend. Okay, maybe it's not the way you're supposed to start off an evaluation - but hey, I wasn't evaluating her for immediate adoption, only to see if she could be adoptable with some work - so in this case, I think bribery is completely allowed.

By the way, some signs of an aggressive dog (besides growling or snapping/biting) can include a stiff posture, closed mouth, and rapid tail wags. This is why people sometimes mistake a dog who is wagging its tail for being friendly when its not. I was relieved to see no defensive posture or behavior from Gretchen at all. Instead a found a happy, if slightly fearful, dog. We spent about an hour together, and I quickly fell in love. She came when I called her, sat on command, let me pull her tail and play with her paws and her ears without complaining, and then proceeded to lick my face to let me know how much she liked me. I tried to make her feel threatened, but I'm not very good at being threatening. I wanted to see if I could get her to growl at me. Instead, I would yell or make a loud noise, and she would startle and back away, and I would almost immediately reassure her. I guess I skipped straight from "evaluating" to "training". But once I realized she was not a lost cause, I gave her my heart and decided then and there to do whatever I could to save her.

The shelter worker advised that Gretchen had indeed failed her behavior evaluation, and that they would not be able to adopt her out or hold her for three weeks until I could move and take her in. The volunteers at the shelter were wonderful, and told me how well Gretchen was doing and what an improvement she had been making since she came to the shelter. But most shelters are not like foster homes, and they have limited opportunities to train dogs that need extra work. So I quickly began searching for other options for Gretchen. Unfortunately adoptions have been very slow lately, and all of the other foster homes are full. I called my friend Chuck who volunteers at a different municipal shelter and asked if they could make any room for Gretchen temporarily. He said YES!!! He went and picked her up yesterday and said she is doing fine. She did some growling and aggressive behavior when she first got there, but that was expected since it was scary going to yet another new place. Chuck is spending time with her and helping her to get comfortable. (He bribed her with hot dogs too - I don't feel so guilty about the beef jerky treats anymore.) I am so grateful to him and to the shelter workers where she is staying for saving her life. Being at this shelter is as close as you can get to being in a foster home. The dogs are well cared for and Chuck is there every day taking them out in the fenced yard for play time and interaction, both with other dogs and with people. They have other volunteers that also come in and walk the dogs, and the dogs are really worked with, not just warehoused. So I know that Gretchen is in good hands, and I am just impatiently waiting for the day I can go get her.

Ziggy is Pet of the Week!

I am not sure if you'll be able to read this flyer or not - you can click on it to make it larger. All Paws Rescue recently started a special Pet of the Week promotion, and thanks to a bribe polite request, Ziggy was chosen to be the first Pet of the Week. One of the All Paws volunteers put together a flyer for Ziggy, and did a wonderful job!  This flyer will be distributed to some area businesses and maybe help to get Ziggy adopted!

Gretchen

I'm worried about one of my previous foster dogs. Gretchen was adopted out as a 10 week old puppy. I remember her well. She was part of a litter of 8 puppies, and she was the sweet, quiet, shy one of the bunch. She was more independent than the others, and was least likely to ask for attention or affection. I worked hard to get her over her shyness, and quickly became very attached to her.

Gretchen is now almost two years old. Sometime in the past year and a half, Gretchen has learned that if she's in trouble, the best defense is a good offense. Her owner called me and said he was worried about the safety of his children, because Gretchen had started growling and snapping at people if she was in trouble. Not having seen it for myself, it's hard to know the exact cause. I can't blame a parent for putting the safety of his children first, but I also don't blame Gretchen for using a method to protect herself that she has found works for her. It may simply be a case where with some training, Gretchen can learn better ways to interact with people and feel safe. Unfortunately the family wasn't able to work with a trainer, and had to turn in Gretchen to a shelter. All of the area rescue groups are full right now, so Gretchen ended up at an open admission shelter. She will most likely fail her behavior evaluation, at which point she will be euthanized.

This is the hard part of rescue. What do I do? My living situation aside, it's still a tough choice. If I pull her and foster her, I could be saving a dog that will be very difficult to adopt out. Remember Lizzy the Child-Eating Border Collie? Dogs like Lizzy and Gretchen, who show aggressive behaviors like growling or snapping because they are afraid, are very rewarding to work with. To watch them change and get over their fear, and to learn better ways to deal with fear, is amazing. But they're also very hard to find homes for. They usually need adult-only homes with responsible adults who are patient and willing to work with the dog. Unfortunately there aren't many people like that looking to adopt a difficult dog. So while Gretchen lives with me, it'll keep me from being able to save others. If I consider it by the numbers, it'd be better to spend the time and money that Gretchen would require on the five or eight or twelve dogs that we could save in her place. But rescue isn't always about the numbers - otherwise Ziggy wouldn't still be entertaining me with his antics and driving me crazy with his Ziggy ways. It is a fine line between using your head and using your heart when you do rescue. If you always make decisions based only on emotions, you become either a hoarder, with more animals than you can care for, or you eventually fill up with unadoptable animals and are unable to save any more. And yet if you only make decisions based on what is logical and economical, you will miss out on a lot of really wonderful, deserving dogs, and completely miss the point of rescue.

I hate these types of decisions. This one is made easier by the fact that I haven't moved yet and can't take in Gretchen right now, no matter how much I want to. I've asked the shelter if I can come evaluate Gretchen. I want to see her and get the image of her as a puppy out of my head. That will make it easier to accept whatever happens. I also want to see for myself what she is like, and whether or not I may be able to work with her and help her. Then depending on the evaluation, I can either beg some rescue friends to make room for her until I move, or let her go, knowing that I did all that I could for her. Either way, it will be helpful to see for myself what she is really like. I hope to go see her on Friday.


In other news, I found another home! This one is in Foristell, MO, on two fenced acres, and should be almost perfect for fostering. In fact a previous owner of the home fostered dogs there as well! It is very private and has no restrictions, so I don't have to worry if the dogs want to go outside and bark at the squirrels. It even has "in-law" quarters in the basement, which I could rent out for extra income, if I could ever find anyone crazy enough to want to put up with all the dogs and cats making noise upstairs. Okay, it's safe to say I probably won't be able to rent the downstairs out. But it's a perfect house for me, and I am totally in love with it. I will hopefully be closing on it at the end of the month if everything goes well.

Saturday's Adoption Event

I skipped Saturday's adoption event in favor of continued house hunting, but I did drop off Tripoli and Ziggy for the day, and stayed for a few minutes to take pictures. There were some adorable dogs and cats there hoping to be adopted. Here are a few of my favorites.

This is Hank the beagle mix and a puppy whose name I don't know. The puppy was such a cute silly dog, trying to play with everyone and never standing still. Hank, on the other hand, never moves faster than .003 miles per hour, unless there is food involved. They made a cute pair.

I tried to flip his right ear forward for the picture. I was surprised to find out his right ear doesn't go forward like his left ear does. He seemed surprised also.

This cute puppy is named Brit. She had a great time at the adoption event.

This pretty cat, named Kaylee, got her picture taken for the website. I immediately fell in love with her because she's so friendly and sweet.

This cat, named Sarah, also got her picture taken. She's been on the website for several months, so maybe a new picture will get her some more attention. She's such an affectionate cat, and she will be so happy once she finally gets a home.

Speaking of homes, this is Gracie. She was adopted out as a puppy, and five months later has been returned, so she's now once again waiting on a home. She is so sweet, a little bit shy, and a very good dog.

None of these pets were adopted on Saturday, but I think there were two other dogs adopted, so that was exciting. And I was told that someone actually looked at Ziggy, and he was actually pretty well behaved! He's been doing really well at my house lately too. I even let him spend the night in my bed the other night and he was perfect. My little troublemaker is finally growing up. Next Monday, August 9th, is his first birthday! I think we'll celebrate with a tray of ice cubes and some bananas.