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To All the Foster Dogs I’ve Loved Before
On Loving and Letting Go
My family and I have the privilege of fostering puppies from a local shelter that rescues dogs from high-kill shelters in another state. As a foster family, our responsibilities are to care for the dog through any medical issues they may have and get them ready for adoption by their “furever family.”
How did we get into this? A few years ago, we wanted to get a rescue dog who would do well with our children. My sister-in-law who is a dog trainer gave us the excellent advice that we foster in order to get to know dogs of different breeds and temperaments.
Our first was a teeny pitbull called Sammy with one blue eye and one black. My spirit brimmed with the joy of having a dog in the house again, two years after the passing of my beloved Jack Russell, who had travelled through the mountains and valleys of adolescence and the American West with me. Sammy loved to be held and carried around the house like a baby. It makes me laugh thinking whether he still enjoys this as a full-grown dog.
He was adopted by a young couple, in which the woman was considerably more enthusiastic about him than her beau. Part of me hopes that they broke up and she and Sammy lived happily ever after. Dogs can frankly be more reliable than people, especially in your twenties.
Having a dog in your home shows you what pictures cannot — how they react when a small child grabs their tail, whether they like to snuggle or be left alone, how protective they are, and more. We had two brothers from the same litter and they were as different as night and day.
Uno was the smaller of the pair, and considerably more aggressive. He would bite his brother on the nose and crotch, when he was sleeping. Sometimes he was playing, but with a bit of anthropomorphism it seemed mean-spirited to us. Toby, who had ten pounds on him easy, played along and never hurt him back. He followed my toddler son lovingly and often sat quietly next to him, an old soul in a tiny body (albeit with giant paws).
