Fostering Hope

To be honest, I had never fully considered fostering a dog until a couple of months before I met Hope. I had this picture of it as a great and noble thing that I wasn't capable of. Then I started seeing frequent social media posts from Dogs Lives Matter - Saving NYC Dogs. This put the mission of fostering dogs into a whole new perspective for me. These weren't dogs that people brought home in hopes of keeping forever (though I would later learn just how common foster fails are!). These were dogs that were dying, that day, if nobody stepped up. I can't say I didn't know that somewhere deep down before, but seeing these listings day in and day out, including the mourning posts for those that never got saved, put things into perspective for me. My adopted dog, Melody, was dog-friendly, and I had the resources to feed another mouth; what was I doing sitting idly by while so many dogs waited in kill shelters for someone that never came?

Finding Hope - An Educational Tail

Hope wasn't even the first dog I looked into fostering. There was a dog named Tonka, who I fell in love with at first glance. However, it quickly became clear that he wasn't a good fit for our home. I hadn't fully considered that this was possible. Dog needs home. I have home for dog. What is there not to fit? But Donna from Pound Hounds Res-Q (who I was connected to through the the Dogs Lives Matter Facebook page) was extremely patient while also being firm with me in explaining this concept. I work long hours. Melody free feeds and has been an only dog for a long time. We needed a foster dog that didn't have separation anxiety and didn't resource guard. We also needed to know, not just hope, that the foster we were bringing into our home was dog friendly.

There were a few other dogs I looked into fostering to no avail; in one happy instance, the dog was adopted to their forever home instead. In some other, not-so-happy instances, the dog just wasn't going to be happy in our home, which was upsetting but something I was beginning to understand. The people I was working with suggested I look at lower-risk dogs, as they were less likely to have behavioral issues, but I was set on fostering a dog that likely wouldn't find anyone else if I didn't step in. Finally, when I was beginning to feel like there was no good fit for us, Donna texted me about Hope.

He was all skin and bones, and one of the first things that was explained to me was how delicate the re-feeding process would be. He absolutely broke my heart with his goofy, tongue-out photo despite his physical condition. His eyes are so human, and somehow I could tell just from the photos that he hadn't given up yet. The downside to fostering a dog on death row is that there isn't a lot of time. There's no meet and greet, no intro period; once you're approved, you head to the shelter to pick him up.

Now, my dog Melody is the world's best car dog. I am used to complete silence and a still, sleeping dog in the back seat of my car. Picking up Hope was as far from that as possible. He promptly climbed from the back seat into the front seat, and into my lap, and onto the dashboard. In his attempts to get into the trunk, he managed to fold down the back seat, at which point he climbed into the trunk, back out, and into my lap again. All of this while I drove through New York City, something I had only done a couple of times in my life. As nerve wracking as it was, it overjoyed me to see this emaciated boy was still so full of life and energy.

Introducing Hope

Allowing a dog time to decompress before they meet the other animals in your home is incredibly important. I knew this, I understood this, and I completely failed at this. Again, I was spoiled by Melody. She is afraid of gates, doors, anything that blocks her way. If a gate is precariously leaned up against a doorway, ready to topple over at the slightest breeze, she doesn't dare try to cross that threshold. When I left for the shelter, Melody was gated in the living room. The thought was Hope would live in my bedroom and the kitchen for the first few days, and he and Mel could sniff each other through the gate, but not fully interact until the decompression period ended.

Two minutes and one body-checked gate after we arrived at my apartment, it was clear there would be no decompression time. I was beyond blessed that they both hit it off immediately. What could have been a complete catastrophe ended in a great play session and cuddles on the dog couch. If you ever plan to foster, please learn from my mistake and get a solid, mounted gate to help your foster dog decompress in their own private space; this is how new fosters end up biting resident adopted dogs and get put down.

As lucky as I got on that one, it's one of the few things that went better than planned. As it turned out "mostly" housebroken, as described in the shelter listing, meant "barely" housebroken, and with my long work hours I struggled to house train a four-year-old dog. Hope also had more separation anxiety than the shelter caregivers had realized; after trying without much success to leave him at home during the work day, I ended up taking Hope to work with me. Thank god for dog-friendly offices! While this made it easier to work with him on housebreaking, there were plenty of accidents, and my coworkers were amazingly patient with us as we worked on this. However, I lost a few pairs of shoes, a dog couch, a (fairly new) area rug, and a dog bed to Hope's anxiety-ridden destruction and/or accidents in the process.

It was a trying, stressful process, even after he started coming to the office with me. Especially because his car manners had not improved, making each morning commute its own adventure. Thankfully, he fit right in at the office, even if he did hog my comfy chair. This also afforded Melody some much-needed alone time at my apartment. She loved playing with Hope, but he's very high-energy, and by the end of the day she was often fed up with playing and just wanted to lounge. Having the day to relax and then getting to play after work was a great balance for both of them. Plus, he loved interacting with the other office dogs!

Office Co-Parenting

Having Hope at the office every day ended up being the best decision I made through the fostering process. While I was learning more about Hope, myself, and life every day, my coworker Corinne and her boyfriend had been exploring the idea of adopting a dog. She met and fell in love with Hope, and even as they weighed every aspect of the decision with all the care it required, she began to act more and more like Hope's mom by the day. Soon they were head over heels for each other, with Hope more excited than ever to get to work every day and see his new mom again. When they finally made the decision to adopt Hope, Pound Hounds worked with both of us to set up a smooth and easy transition. The best news of all is that they live right down the street from me, so Hope and Melody get to hang out from time to time!

What I Learned

I am a very privileged person. This is the biggest lesson I learned from fostering. Not that I didn't know it before, but this experience made me more self-aware about it. I have a job that not only let me suddenly decide to bring my foster dog (who was still house training!) into work with me, but that worked with me as I took him to numerous vet appointments in the early days of fostering. I also had the financial ability to replace the belongings that got ruined as Hope and I got to know each other better and overcame his behavioral issues.

Fostering was hard. I knew that going into it; I fully expected it to be one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life. And it was so much harder than I could have imagined. The hardest thing of all was deciding that, as much as I love Hope, his life would be better if he went up for adoption with a different family. His separation anxiety made him not a good fit for my home, and his new parents were able to give him a life that he would be happier in. The entire fostering process gave me so much more insight into the concept of how pets, especially when they're already grown, fit into our lives in specific ways, and how delicate that is. All the love in the world doesn't mean you can give a pet the best life if they aren't a good fit for your home. But what you can do, what amazing groups like Pound Hounds exist to help us do, is help the Hopes of the world find the Corinnes of the world.