2012 in Fosters - A Retrospective

As 2012 winds to a close, it's time to reflect on the foster dogs who came through this house in the past year.

Just like in 2011, all our fosters came from Southern states: Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina. They were adopted out all across the country: Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Alabama, Wisconsin, and Vermont are homes to our fosters now.

Here are the fosters we housed in the past twelve months.

1. Crookytail the Benevolent, RL1 (January 2012)
The One Who Stayed

Crookytail was my first pull from Robeson County, North Carolina. RCAS and neighboring Sampson County became the focus of my rescue efforts in 2012, in part because Liberty County's rescue team became so successful that their shelter's save rate went from 2% to 98%, and thus all the dogs I wanted to pull were spoken for before I got to them. Also, I'd gotten more confident about my ability to pick out good dogs instead of relying on other people to choose them for me.

Thus began the Era of Crookytail, in which he added his considerable talents to our fostering team, and everything got way better than it had ever been before. All the fosters start smiling in their pictures a lot more once Crooky joins the team.

This year, Crookytail went from a dog with absolutely no formal training to a titled Rally Obedience dog. Granted, he didn't love the sport and is retiring as a RL1, but I'm still proud of him, and in 2013 he'll be able to get back to his real job: guidance counselor to foster dogs.

2 and 3. Jackie and Erin (March 2012)
The Trailer Park Kids

After Crooky joined us as a permanent dog, I did puppies for a while because I didn't think I could handle three full-sized dogs. Little did I know that puppies are actually a WAY bigger pain in the ass. Jackie and Erin, the two on the right in that picture, were the first of our foster puppies. They were "found" in a cardboard box in a trailer park (in reality, the person who claimed to have "found" them was probably their owner who just didn't want to be held responsible for dumping a litter of puppies).

Because dogs in Robeson County frequently get no preventative care or vaccinations whatsoever, both of these puppies came down with parvo a few days after I pulled them. They had to go into the doggy ICU and get IVs for a few days. All told, their vet care cost about a thousand bucks, and Erin died anyway. Jackie survived and made it to Philly. She got adopted two days later.

4 and 5. Cerise and Razzmatazz (March - April 2012)
The Burnout Babies

I'll tell you a secret: even the best foster parents don't always love all their dogs.

These two were my least favorite fosters ever. It wasn't their fault, but I still never liked them very much. They had sarcoptic mange and were being treated with lime-sulfur dips, so they smelled terrible and I had to give them medicine four times a day and wash my hands every time I touched them and Dog Mob had to take preventative medicine too. Because they were itchy and miserable, they just wailed constantly and scratched all the time and were basically impossible to train. Because they were hound mixes, their wailings were LOUD, which did not endear them to me, as we live in a condo and our next-door neighbor was a doctor who was eight or nine months pregnant at the time and already not sleeping well.

We had these puppies for two weeks, then Cerise got adopted and Razz went to go stay with a lady who was fostering one of her other littermates.

6 and 7. Indy and Little Fox (April - May 2012)
The Melon Collies

These two little monsters were a couple of collie mixes that I pulled from North Carolina. Their mother was a collie mix; their fathers were probably two different dogs. Little Fox's father was definitely a German Shepherd (her owners were kind enough to tell the shelter staff that as they were dumping the mother), but Indy's father was most likely a yellow Lab or Lab mix.

A friend of ours decided to adopt Indy (the beige one), so I kept her a couple more weeks for basic training and put Little Fox up for adoption. Little Fox got adopted by a very nice older couple in Bucks County. Indy lives in Alabama with our friend now, where she eats his furniture and destroys his remote controls and is generally a massive troublemaker. I told him that was going to happen, but he insisted he wanted the tomboy and not the polite little lady, so that's what he gets.

After those two left, I decided I was never doing puppies again. NEVER.

8. Mab (June - July 2012)
The Smart One

That summer, some more friends decided that they wanted to adopt a dog, so they contacted us for help picking one out. I sent them a couple of possible candidates and they chose Mab, a little black border collie in RCAS. Mab got out of the shelter with about 90 minutes to spare. She turned out to be the smartest foster we've ever had -- just ridiculously quick to learn and easy to train. If she hadn't already been promised to our friends, I would have been sorely tempted to keep her, but as is I'm just delighted that she went on to such a good home. She lives in Vermont now and has a wonderful extended family of dogs.

9. Eldwin/Etta (August 2012)
The Happy One

Eldwin, who was later renamed Etta, was another foster dog that I was briefly tempted to keep. She was a little shepherd mix who came out of RCAS and also proved to be super smart, as well as happy and smiley and instantly endearing. Luckily she got an adoption commitment from a dream home with a young couple in Philly within two or three days of arrival, so I could file her away mentally as "taken" and stop myself from getting too attached. She was only with us for ten days, and it's a good thing, too. Any longer and she might never have left.

10. Tulip (August 2012)
The Short-Term Pee Sprinkler

I barely got to know Tulip, a beagle mix from SCAS who was in and out of here in less than 48 hours. She was sweet, but really timid and a major submissive urinator. Crookytail helped bring her around, and she showed a good bit of improvement in the short time she was here, but we didn't really have enough time to fix that issue, because Tulip got adopted almost immediately. Hooray, less pee mopping for me.

11. April (August - September 2012)
The Good Mama

April was a soft-hearted, gentle black Lab/border collie mix from rural Tennessee, where she had been found outside a branch bank with her daughter Scarlett. The local rescue hadn't been able to get her adopted, so they sent her and a few other dogs to my rescue group. Scarlett got adopted immediately (puppies always go first), one of our friends and his wife decided to adopt April soon after she got here, and I got to deal with the toughest potty-training case I've been faced with so far.

I owe a lot to the magic powers of Crookytail on this one. With his help, April was brought out of her depression and given a crash course in remedial socialization and successfully started on potty-training. She now lives with two cats in Wisconsin and is a very lucky dog. It turns out that she loves snow, which is good, because she'll be getting a lot of it out there.

12. Shelby/Sydney (October - November 2012)
The Box Dog

Shelby, later renamed Sydney, was yet another mama dog who sat in the shelter after her puppies had been adopted (although in Sydney's case, only one of her puppies actually got adopted -- the other died, probably of hookworms, before his adopters could pick him up). Although she was smart and sweet and blessed with exotic markings, no one seemed to want her. On her last day, the shelter director sent out a plea across Facebook for someone to pull this special little dog.

She was in rough shape when I pulled her; she was severely underweight and had a massive parasite load, including heartworms. Luckily, other generous people had been touched by the director's plea and donated hundreds of dollars to cover Sydney's medical bills. Even so, she had to spend a full month on crate rest before she could go up for adoption.

But Sydney came through heartworm treatment like a champ and proved to be an adaptable, friendly, quick-learning dog who went on to a great home in upstate New York with three other dogs. She was another one that I wanted to keep, because she was smart and had great hind-end awareness and a really nice natural side pass, but alas, I can't have three dogs. And she scored an excellent home, so I'm pretty happy with that.

And that is the recap of 2012 in foster dogs. In just a few more weeks, we'll saddle up to start again in 2013. Crookytail is excited and Pongu is filled with loathing at the prospect of bringing in some new foster fuzzbutts. I'm already scouting for prospects.

April Goes Home

This is another belated post, since April went home almost exactly two weeks ago, but better late than never?

We had about three weeks with April. A little more than half that time was just spent helping her get comfortable and fixing issues that were created, or at least passively allowed to worsen, by her previous placement. April had never spent any time apart from her daughter Scarlett, so when they were finally separated, she went into a serious depression. It would have been better for both dogs if they'd been separated for short periods of time so that each could get used to being without the other -- but they weren't, and so the separation ended up being a lot more traumatic than it needed to be.

She also was not housebroken, crate trained, or accustomed to walking on leash (contrary to the representations that her previous placement had made on Petfinder, but that's a rant for another day. Suffice to say that I feel very strongly that making inaccurate representations about a dog's training is a disservice to both the dog and her eventual adopters. Most people are willing to do the work, if they're prepared for it -- and the ones who aren't need to know that the dog they're considering might be above their pay grade work-wise).

The potty training was the worst of these; April was the most difficult housebreaking case I've dealt with so far. She could (and did!) spend hours outside, refusing to let out a drop, but as soon as she went back into the house, she'd pee everywhere. No matter what I tried, she would not pee outside, only indoors, giving me no opportunity to praise her for making a correct choice. I was seriously at my wits' end... until Crookytail worked his magic and coaxed her to follow his good example. I took them out together, and when Crookytail peed, April did too. When he pooped, she did too. It turned out that all she needed was a role model to show her the right answer.

Once Crooky got April to finally potty outside, I could reinforce her for doing the right thing, and after a couple of days of Prizes for Potties, things got a lot easier. And by the end of the second week, we were just about done with Potty Hell. It was smooth sailing from there on out. Thanks, Crookydog!

Despite her initial adjustment issues, April was, and is, a good dog: sweet, gentle, people-oriented and dog-social. She doesn't bark much, she's not destructive, and her exercise needs are quite moderate, particularly for a lab/border collie mix. She has everything it takes to be an ideal family pet. And so it's not surprising that she was spoken for within two hours of coming to our house, although she didn't actually go home until a few weeks later.

April's forever family lives in Wisconsin, so it took a little while to set up the relay of friends and family who drove her halfway across the country. In the meantime, April quickly picked up the rest of the basic skills that would get her off to a good start in her new home. By the time she left, she had a decent Sit, an okayish Down, was very polite on leash, and had begun learning a baby recall and a baby Stay. We didn't get quite as far as I would have liked on those things, but it was enough of a foundation to build on.

And then she went home.

We dropped her off in Fannettsburg, a little speck of a town midway between Philly and Pittsburgh. Our friend Andrew kindly took over from there and drove April the rest of the way to Pittsburgh, where she was passed off to the next person in line.

Some 16 hours later, April made it all the way home. She settled in nicely, did not eat her new family's cats, and is now living happily with a new toy giraffe and the raggedy remains of the green squeaky snake she stole from Crookytail.

And that is the end of our story with April. The next dog arrives late tonight.

April Starts Boot Camp

We're nearing the end of April's first week here, and so far she's doing pretty well.

I started formal training "boot camp" yesterday (as opposed to informal-but-still-important stuff like "plz don't freak out on leash every time a car goes by" and "plz don't jump on me and bite my hands when you want a treat") and she has, as predicted, proven to be a quick study. In two days she's begun responding to her name and has mostly gotten Sit on a verbal cue (she gives the correct response about 75% right now, so the basic idea is there, we just need to work on reliability and speed).

It is, admittedly, kind of a bummer that this dog was in foster care for six or seven months before getting transferred here and apparently didn't learn anything in all that time, but there's no use bemoaning that now. You work with the dog you have.

And the dog that I have -- now that Crookytail's broken through the shell of her depression and coaxed her real personality out -- is a sweet, smiley, affectionate little dog who is just delighted when she figures out a correct response in the training game. She doesn't bark much, she takes correction easily (maybe too easily; more on that later), and she's thrilled with the concept of dog beds, if also somewhat confused about the distinction between "dog bed" and "chew toy." For a border collie mix, she's got very moderate exercise needs: an hour's brisk walk and another hour of wrassling with Dog Mob, and she's pretty much good for the day.

The one and only real issue we've run across so far is that April is not housetrained and is not proving particularly easy to housetrain.

In large part, this is because she only potties once a day. I don't know why. I suspect it's tied to anxiety in a new environment, but she doesn't seem anxious on walks anymore -- she trots along beside me with her tail loose and wagging and a big smile on her face -- so I don't know if that's really the reason. Whatever it is, she only goes once a day. All the other times, I take her out to the potty spot and wait... and wait... and wait some more... and she does nothing, unless it's that one magic moment when she does do something.

This does not, obviously, give me many opportunities to reinforce her for making Good Life Decisions. I get one shot per day, and that is pretty much it.

It's not helping my sanity that it's not easy to predict when that magic moment will come. Yesterday I took her out for a 40-minute walk (punctuated with many long, pointed stops at the potty spot), brought her back inside, and started a short, closely supervised training session in the kitchen. After two repetitions of Sit, April suddenly squatted and let loose with a big ol' flood right in the middle of the kitchen floor. aaaargh.

It's also not helping my sanity that April has a tendency toward submissive urination (although not, thankfully, half as bad as Tulip's was). If she's scolded in too stern a tone of voice, on go the sprinklers. If I'm too brusque with clipping her leash on or hustling her down the stairs to potty, the waterworks come on again. It's not always easy to strike a balance between getting her outside expeditiously and having anything to get outside. This is definitely one of those situations where my life would be a billion times easier if I had a yard.

But apart from that one issue (which, I keep telling myself, will surely go away once April feels more comfortable in her temporary home...), she's been a very easy houseguest. And as I get to know her better, I'm more and more confident that she'll make a great pet.

Here she is being hypnotized by the squirrels at Washington Square Park:

April Arrives

On Wednesday night I picked up foster dog #14: an 18-month-old black Lab/border collie mix named April.

April comes from Tennessee. One of the employees at a branch bank there kept seeing a little black dog hovering around the building. Eventually he realized that the dog was living there and fed her for a while until she and her puppy could be caught.

Life isn't easy for strays, and April was very young (she probably had her puppies in her first heat), and despite her best efforts, only one of her pups -- Scarlett -- made it into rescue. April was a good mommy: on the morning of her transport into Philadelphia, when a volunteer gave her some chicken for breakfast, she ate one piece herself and carried the second piece over to Scarlett's crate and pushed it through the bars so her puppy could have it.

The Tennessee rescue held onto these dogs for several months, but there just aren't a lot of local adopters in that area, so when it became evident that April and her pup weren't going to find homes where they were, that rescue reached out to Wags to take April, Scarlett, and another mother-daughter pair of yellow Lab mixes. This Wednesday, they arrived in the Philadelphia area. Scarlett went home to her waiting adopter, and April came to my place to do a foster stint.

She was very depressed on arrival. The day April came here was probably the first time she'd been separated from Scarlett. In addition to the usual confusion and transport stress that all the fosters undergo at first, April just seemed apathetic to everything. She didn't want to play, she didn't want to eat, she just laid down flat on the floor of her crate and didn't seem much interested in anything.

Crookytail, however, wasn't about to let her stay sad.

His early attempts to cheer her up were not entirely successful. I made this clip after Crooky had been doing the same thing for about 15 minutes. At first April ignored him entirely. By this point, she was tentatively interested (she approaches and sniffs at him around the 10-second mark, which is more engagement than she had shown up to that time) but she still wasn't up to playing. Her body language remains slow and somewhat stiff throughout the clip, she keeps her tail tightly tucked between her legs (when she first came off the transport van I wasn't even sure she had a tail), her weight is shifted to her back legs, and all in all she's just not into it. When Crookytail gets too insistent (0:33-0:35, that over-the-shoulder chin lean and scruff grab -- very rude!), she snaps back defensively.

But Crookytail does not give up. Undaunted, and now more respectful of April's personal space, he keeps flinging himself on the ground and rolling over to show that he's not a threat to the smaller dog. (You will never, ever see Pongu self-handicapping like that, although Crooky does it routinely when he's interacting with puppies and smaller dogs. Crookytail is willing to give up his dignity to have a good time. Pongu most assuredly is not.)

And by the end, it's starting to work. In the very last seconds of the clip you can see April relax a little: her tail comes out and wags, her ears come up a little, she shakes off the stress, and she flashes a smile.

20 minutes later, I threw out some toys:

Dog Mob immediately seized upon the opportunity to fling them around. Crookytail's still trying to engage April (note his little war dance with the green squeaky snake, which is his favorite toy to parade around in front of new dogs) but seems to have mostly decided that it will work better to play with Pongu for now and show April via demonstration that toys are fun!

April, who's both more curious and less pressured with this new dynamic, starts showing a little more spirit: her tail is still down but it's no longer tucked between her legs, and she waves it a little bit occasionally. Her ears are positioned higher. She's showing some interest in the toys and sniffing around the periphery of their games; she's not ready to jump into the middle of things yet, but she knows that Dog Mob is having fun and she's thinking about playing with them.

Toward the end, she makes much bigger and looser tail wags, is curious enough to start investigating the guinea pig pen, and gives me many big smiles.

Then they all collapsed in exhaustion.

By the next morning (today), April was actively playing:

She still isn't completely relaxed -- she snaps at Dog Mob a couple of times to get more space when they start ganging up on her, and her tail is tucked between her legs for most of the interaction -- but she's choosing to engage Crookytail again and again, and she's clearly eager to play pounce-and-wrestle games.

Overall, her mood appears to have improved a lot over the two days since her arrival. April is now eating, playing with toys, and displaying more curiosity about the world, including the guinea pigs:

She jumped into the pen once, but after being corrected with a "No!" she immediately stopped hassling the pigs, got out, and has behaved appropriately since then. Her interest in them appears pretty normal/safe to me, and I think it's fair to consider April's current behavior to be representative of her actual personality, so I'm stamping her as "cat safe" for potential adoptive households.

And that's where we are going into Day Two. She's come around enough that we can probably start formal training tonight or tomorrow.