2011 in Fosters, From Pongu's POV

(I'll do a real retrospective at the end of the year.)

Nessie Comes to Visit

Nessie was adopted and moved on to her forever home after only ten days with us. Her new owner lived right down the block, so even after she was adopted, we still saw her all the time. She took to her new family immediately and was very happy there, but it was nice just to stop by, see how she was doing, and say "hi" in passing.

Apparently she felt the same way.

One morning, a couple of weeks after Nessie got adopted, I went up to the roof deck to water my garden. On the other side of the glass door, I was greeted by a familiar face staring and a familiar tail wagging.

"HELLO FRIENDS!!" (wag wag)

It took a second for my totally uncaffeinated brain to register what I was seeing, but there she was: Nessie. On our roof.

I'm still not entirely sure how she got there, but the most likely answer is that Nessie slipped out of our neighbor's fenced-in deck through an unlocked door, ran across the connecting roofs (an odyssey that would have required her to make two fairly athletic jumps), and somehow got over the fence into our deck. I cannot fathom how she figured out that she could reach our house, but she did.

So I let her in, gave her a rawhide to keep her occupied (she promptly plopped down in Pongu's dog bed to chew it, which did not endear her to him, and then stole his rawhide and ate it too), and waited for her people to wake up so we could take her home.

Pongu was not terribly thrilled to see Nessie come back.

After about an hour they came and got her. Nessie was obviously happy to see her new people and eager to go home, so it wasn't that her visit meant she wanted to come back and live with us. She just wanted to stop by and say hi, as we had so many times with her.

Pongu vs. Nessie, Round Two: Catch the Toy!

One of the games I sometimes like to play with my dog(s) is Catch the Toy.

Our house, predictably, is strewn with a constant litter of dog toys. At any given moment there are usually a couple of empty Kongs rolling around, an eviscerated Kong Braid toy (Pongu is especially partial to the geckos), a well-gnawed Nylabone or two, and maybe the deflated carcass of a Tuffie whale or sea mite to round things out. Pongu goes through toys like a chain smoker does cartons of Marlboro Reds, so there's always a whole lot of something lying around.

We play Catch the Toy in the middle of this mess. I throw a random toy down the hall. The dogs have to chase that toy down, as opposed to all the others scattered in their way, and bring it back to me for a treat. Wrong toys get no treats.

Pongu and Nessie wait for a new game to begin

I never actually taught Nessie the rules of this game because it's not a training exercise, it's just something I do in the morning before I've had enough coffee to think of a real exercise. Also, I figured she'd pick it up easily enough on her own, since the basic idea is so simple and it's easy for dogs to distinguish the "live" toy that's moving from all the "dead" toys that are inert.

Well, I was half right.

Whenever I played Catch the Toy with Pongu and Nessie, they would both immediately run after the moving toy and try to catch it. Nessie always got there first because she's twice as fast as Pongu. Then she would flip it into the air and chase it again, or do the terrier head-shake and whip it around from side to side, because she didn't know (or didn't care) that she could trade the toy for a treat.

This drove Pongu absolutely bonkers. He wanted the treat. He knew how to get the treat. He probably would not have minded so much if Nessie had just traded the toy in, eaten her treat, and started a new round of the game, but her refusal to move things along just frustrated him beyond all endurance.

So he started trying to take the toy from her. First he tried just grabbing it and yanking it away, but that didn't work too well since most of the time he either couldn't get it away from her or Nessie turned it into a game of tug-of-war, which was enormously fun for her and enormously enraging for Pongu.

The next strategy he hit upon was grabbing a different, non-rewardable toy, and playing with it in front of her with great exaggeration, as if to say "this toy is SO AWESOME, it is way better than your lame toy, pssh who would want that toy when you could have THIS ONE which by the way is SO MUCH FUN, just look how much fun I'm having!"

Nessie fell for it every time. She'd drop her toy and go after his, whereupon Pongu would snatch away the reward toy and run it back to me for a treat.

Pongu: 2. Nessie: 0.

Pongu vs. Nessie, Round One: Tattling on the Couch Sitter

Pongu and Nessie-the-foster-dog did not get along. This was 100% completely Pongu's fault. Nessie was never anything but a saint toward him, but Pongu could not and would not countenance another dog staying in his home and taking up the attention of his person.

He never got violent about it. Pongu was much more devious than that (plus he knew that being snippy would get him in trouble). But every waking moment that Nessie was in the house, Pongu was furiously plotting her downfall.

(Of course, we don't really know what he was thinking. There's considerable dispute over whether dogs can even feel so-called "complex" emotions like jealousy. But if you lived with these two dogs for more than fifteen minutes, I'm pretty sure you'd have to agree that, at the very least, Pongu was clearly capable of jealousy. And his expressions certainly suggested fiendish plotting.)

One afternoon, while the Spousal Unit was in the shower, Pongu stood at the bathroom door and began whining in his best "come-quick-Timmy's-in-the-well!" Lassie impression.

Pongu never does this, so the Spousal Unit was duly concerned and hurried out to see what was the matter. Perhaps the stove was on fire! Or the freezer had malfunctioned and was leaking poisonous goo all over the floor!

Helpfully Pongu trotted toward the living room, leading SU to... the nice comfortable white couch. Where the dogs are not allowed. And where Nessie was sprawled out full length, relaxing.

And at once Pongu turned to SU, his expression clearly conveying: "See? SEE?! This dog is breaking the rules! GET RID OF HER!!"

Nessie

This is Nessie, our first foster dog.

Nessie, an 18-month-old yellow mutt of mystery lineage, came to us through Whispering Woods Animal Rescue. She was originally from rural Georgia, where her prior owners dumped her at a shelter because, after being left unspayed and unattended, surprise!, she'd gotten pregnant. She had five healthy puppies in the shelter (all of which were also transported up to the Northeast and adopted), and once they were weaned, it was time for her to come up to Philadelphia too.

In some ways, Nessie was an ideal first foster dog. She was unfailingly sweet-tempered, patient in the face of Pongu's continual ear-gnawing jealousy, and a born people pleaser. Almost from the start, she was comfortable and confident in the city, even though it had to have been a huge change from the world she'd known before. Her temperament was exceptional: she loved children and was instinctively gentle with them, got along well with dogs of all shapes and sizes, and never displayed any hint of shyness or aggression.

Nessie and Pongu EVISCERATE a Kong Gecko

In other ways, Nessie was a little bit of a challenge. She didn't appear to be potty trained (although, happily, she was a naturally clean dog who picked that idea up fast). When we first picked her up, she didn't know any commands, how to walk on a leash, or seemingly even her name. But she was eager to learn, and in the ten days we had her, Nessie made amazing progress on all fronts.

Most importantly for a foster dog, Nessie was a charmer. She had a gift for winning people's hearts, and it's no surprise that, within days, she found a wonderful adoptive home by literally charming her future owner as she walked past him on the street.

Nessie goes home

We were sorry to let her go, but a little relieved, too -- another week or two, and we'd have been sorely tempted to keep her for ourselves.

Fostering Nessie was a wonderful, exasperating, educational experience. She made me laugh and she warmed my heart and she made me want to rip my hair out in frustration. I'm glad to have known her, and it's largely because of her that this blog exists.