Tag Archives: rescue

Tails: Fostering- a Dichotomy of Heartbreak and Hope

This Friday I will say goodbye to my foster dog, Maisy.  I am teary eyed just typing the sentence.  Maisy was a 12 year old owner surrender to Chicago Animal Control.  I happened about her picture on Facebook one day and noticed that no rescues had come to her rescue.  Her picture was gut wrenching.  A tiny little furball who looked beyond scared and neglected.  Her eyes pierced my soul and immediately, I found myself on a mission to free her.

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At the time, our rescue wasn’t able, but by the time we got her pulled, circumstances changed (as rescue is always changing) and she became ours.  I took her to an ISO at a vet clinic outside the city.  Maisy had half the coat she should, mostly elephant skin… Her ears were infected, she smelled like she hadn’t been bathed in years, her nails were curled into her legs… The dog was a hot mess.  (If I had a favorite breed, it would be “hot mess.”)

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She spent a week at the vet clinic.  I went to visit her in the basement where they kept her.  I wasn’t at all impressed with the situation and as soon as she was cleared from the canine flu, I drove there and got her out.  Maisy is tiny.  Weighing in at only 9 pounds, she seems just skin and bones.  Frail in some ways and feisty in others.  She is resilient.  She is a survivor.

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I have spent the last 10 years immersed in rescue and animal welfare and though I am often surrounded by dogs in need, there are just certain ones that find their way directly into my heart.  Maisy is one of those dogs.

Her eyes, well, they saved her life because they are so profound.  She is not blind like we initially thought from the picture.  But, she does have dry eye and will probably always need eye meds.  Whether her lack of coat is from mange or diet or allergies or stress, we have every possible issue covered.  In the last two weeks, her hair has started to grow back.  Her eyes sparkle and her smell… I took care of that, too.  She still has far to go to appear, “normal,” but truthfully, I don’t see any of her scars or illnesses anymore.  I only see her as the lovable, sassy dog she always was.

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My three dogs aren’t the best hosts.  You would think since they were each once foster dogs, they would understand the situation better and be kinder.  Instead, they cling to the pack they know and sadly, shun most others who come for a stay.  They would never hurt her or any dog.  They just don’t go out of their way to make anyone else feel welcome.  Maybe they think you have to earn your right to stay?  I don’t know.

What I do know is that Maisy longs for someone to play with.  It appears she has never seen a cat before and has resorted to practically begging our cats to play.  She tosses her own toys and plays fetch with herself.  My dogs just look on with irritation and eyes that seem to ask,”When will she be leaving?”

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A few years ago, I would have kept Maisy.  It wouldn’t have mattered if she fit in with my group.  It wouldn’t have mattered what the rest of my family thought.  The reality was I couldn’t bear to let a dog go.

That is until two years ago when Lin, our President, sent me the picture of my foster dog with her new family. There she was, sitting on the lap of her new owner, as the couple drove away waving goodbye in their convertible.  I wasn’t there, but the picture was proof enough that the dog found her perfect home and that it would be a happy ending.  I suddenly realized that I didn’t have to “keep”  them all in order for them to be fully loved and cared for.

Fostering is hard.  You are letting someone into your heart knowing full well that they will leave and you will be crushed.  Many foster dogs require a lot of attention and care.  They might need meds and baths and training.  Often you give more to them when they are with you than your own dogs.  You give them everything without a second thought because you see in their eyes how thankful they are to be safe, to be cared for and to be loved.

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Friday is only a few days away.  I have already teared up a dozen times in anticipation of saying goodbye.  I always worry that Maisy, or any foster, will think I didn’t love them, that they weren’t good enough to keep.  After all they have been through, it kills me to believe they could think that.  I only want them to know how deserving of a family they truly are.

I am fortunate this time because Lin is going to foster her.  I have known Lin for a long time.  I have stayed at her home, I have snuggled with her dogs.  I KNOW Maisy will be loved.  None the less, my heart will break a little on Friday because when I take in a dog, any dog, I love it with everything I have.  Maisy is no exception.

Here’s the hard truth about fostering.  If I hadn’t fostered Maisy, she would have been dead by now.  No other rescues came forward to save her.  She was a senior in need of a lot of care.  She is the kind of dog who enters a shelter everyday and rarely gets the chance to leave alive.  Sometimes, I think, people think I, and others like me, exaggerate when we say things like that, but it is the honest truth.  Millions of dogs, just like Maisy, will be killed this year simply because there wasn’t an available foster home to save them.

Fostering is emotionally challenging, but to actually KNOW you are saving a life – there are very few things that can be so rewarding.  I will cry, maybe for days, but Maisy will live on for years to come.  She will dazzle others with her personality. She will melt hearts with her eyes.  She will become part of a family.  She gets her second chance.

My tears are selfish and  short-lived, but fostering is selfless and life-changing.  Please, if you love dogs (or cats) and have temporary space in your home, consider becoming a foster.  There are so many great rescues across the country looking for you.  And, there are so many dogs like Maisy, who long for a second chance to be loved.

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Tails: RTO – The Low Hanging Fruit No One is Trying to Pick

There’s celebration in Wisconsin this week.  A bill passed to shorten the stray hold in shelters.  Oh, you probably can’t hear the party, because not everyone is celebrating.  Lost Dogs Wisconsin along with their umbrella organization, Lost Dogs America, tried very hard to stop the bill.  “Why?” you may ask… Well, Lost Dogs America, an ALL volunteer organization, helped reunite over 30,000 families and dogs in 2015.  It seems they know a thing or two about the bonds between pets and their owners.  They are also painfully well aware that most of the shelter systems in WI are broken.  Return to Owner (RTO) rates are tragic with many of the big shelters not making RTO a priority and rarely attempting to find owners or list found dogs on their websites.

LDA pleaded with WI legislation to fix the shelter systems BEFORE shortening the stray hold, but, sadly, they went ahead and passed the bill with no necessary improvements for shelters.  Basically, in the vast state of WI, you now have only 4 days, that is 96 hours, to find your lost dog at a shelter before they can adopt it out, transfer it to a rescue in or out of state, or kill it.  There was some stipulation for a longer hold UNLESS the dog was ill, or its behavior was a danger to the public.  The reality is those two exceptions are subject to so much interpretation that a shelter can act however it sees fit.  One bad cough or loud growl and your dog could be heading over Rainbow Bridge long before you could ever locate him.

Yes, there are statistics that back-up some of the advantages of shorten stray holds.  Stats that show more dogs move through the shelter system quicker – HOPEFULLY resulting in more live release rates, but not always.  I don’t think anyone really challenged those stats, but, instead, argued that in the world of rescue and animal welfare, we should be trying to preserve the human-animal bond, not destroy it.

Return to Owner is an area of animal welfare few people talk about.  You certainly don’t hear the big guys talk about it much (Best Friends, HSUS – both groups who lobbied in favor of the bill).  Yet, RTO seems like an area shelters and rescues should dedicate resources to.  Why are they so willing to spend time and money on adoptions and transfers (even euthanasia) when there is a really good chance the dog sitting in the kennel already has a home?

I remember working at my county animal control… we had a binder for lost dog reports and when dogs would come in, we would check the binder.  We would also check it before placing the dog on the adoption side or euthanizing him.  However, we didn’t really do much else.  There the dog sits for a week and we just “hope” someone calls or comes in for him.

Not everyone who loses a dog knows where to look or even what to do.  LDA is trying hard to change that by educating those who contact them on the many avenues there are to find your dog, from fliers to website postings, to calling every vet, shelter and animal control in a 100 mile radius.  The truth is unless you are active in the rescue world, not many people know all the shelters and vet clinics in the area.  Rescue people take that kind of knowledge for granted.

LDA partners with Helping Lost Pets.  Helping Lost Pets has an INTERNATIONAL, FREE database that allows individuals, shelters, vet clinics, etc. to post lost and found dogs (as well as pinpoint sightings) on a map based system.  It is truly brilliant.  I did mention is was FREE, right?  Yet, there are shelters across the country NOT using it?  Shelters right in WI who choose to do nothing instead.  How does that make sense?  An animal shelter should be using all possible resources to get that dog home.

RTO is really the low-hanging fruit when it comes the array of possibilities of getting a dog out of the shelter.  To adopt a dog out, he has to stay for the stray hold period, might need medical care, he has to pass some type of temperament test or behavior assessment, he needs to have all his vaccines and be neutered, he has to sit on the adoption side waiting for the right person to want him, maybe he goes to adoption events.  Once someone adopts him, there is a fairly decent chance, he will be returned and the entire cycle starts again.

To transfer a dog, the shelter has to have partnerships with rescues in the area that they manage, the dog has to stay for the stray hold period, be medically treated,  the shelter has to reach out to rescues hoping someone will take him, they have to arrange transfer dates and at times vaccinate and neuter the dog before the rescue will take him.

To euthanize a dog, he has to stay for the stray hold, he has to be behaviorally assessed, he might have to be medically treated and, then, the decision is made to be euthanized.  For most shelter workers, that is the hardest and saddest part of the job – placing unbelievable amounts of stress and depression on shelter workers, causing them to quit the job sooner.

To return a dog to owner, the shelter simply has to post the lost dog in a database.  When the owner comes to get the dog there might be microchipping or a neuter involved, but there is no behavior assessment, no extended shelter time and rarely a chance that the owner is going to return the dog a few days later.  RTO is ALWAYS a quicker, happy ending.

RTO is not a number many shelters use to measure success, but if your dog gets lost wouldn’t you want to believe that getting him back home is part of the shelter’s responsibility as an animal welfare organization?  Wouldn’t you want to assume that a shelter’s first priority is to find the owner, not just get the dog out the shelter?

My favorite phrase is, “Dogs don’t fall from the sky.”  Not really just a phrase, a fact, right?  Yes, in some areas strays are a prevalent reality.  Yes, some people (very few) lose their dogs and don’t even try to find them.  I have found quite a few dogs in my 45 years and not one has been a stray.  Each one had a family desperately looking for them.  Interesting that when good Samaritans find dogs they almost always make incredible attempts to find the dog’s owner, yet, shelters and rescues don’t?  The irony… and the very sad reality that needs to change NOW.