You’ve decided to take the plunge—you’re going to foster an animal in need. You’ve done your research and studied up. You’ve read all the handouts from the foster program and you’ve watched the DVDs. You’ve met with the program’s foster coordinator, you’ve had the home visit. You’re stocked up on everything your foster pet will need and more. You’ve committed the time, you’re ready for the challenges. Your foster pet will be arriving soon. What should you expect?
Expect the unexpected!
Over the years, many dogs have walked into my house that I did not know at all—strays off the street, for example, that I was holding until animal control could pick them up. I do all I can to keep stray dogs isolated from my own pets, for obvious reasons, usually crating them on my porch rather than bringing them into the house. With dogs that are not strays—dogs who come to my home for socialization, training, overnight visits—I have much more information. Most important, is the dog healthy? Up to date on shots, with no transmittable disease or parasites? And is the dog safe? (In these circumstances, when I say “safe,” I mean, Will my pets be safe during this visit? Will I?)
In a foster situation, you know the dog’s health background and that he or she has recently had a full veterinary check-up. With most foster programs, you also have the assurance that if you have concerns regarding the dog’s physical well-being, you can take the dog to the program’s veterinarian at no cost to you. That’s comforting in itself!
Foster pets will have been evaluated for their behavior as well. Foster placements in homes with other pets, small children, or fragile adults have been deemed not to be a danger in those situations. In many programs, your potential foster animal has been “tested” around other animals, kids, and seniors, and in “social” situations, like walking in the park. Foster programs do not want to place a animal with you if, in your home, the animal would encounter “triggers” for any problematic behavior. A known cat-chaser would not be placed in a residence with cats, for example; a cat who is fearful of dogs would not be fostered in a house full of canines.
But there is so much that foster programs cannot predict!
I had a very funny yet bothersome experience myself with unpredictable animal behavior when I was training hearing dogs. All the dogs we trained in the program for which I worked were shelter pets, chosen for what we could see of their potential when we “tested” them at the shelter. Once we had a likely dog picked out, one of us would take that dog home to see how it fared there. Many dogs did not make the cut, for one reason or another, because they turned out not to be well-suited for the particular job. Some stayed in our homes for only a few days, some for weeks—even months.
One went back to the shelter after his first visit to my home.
He was a heeler mix, small and wiry, short-haired, the usual heeler white with many black spots, big pointy ears, and a happy smile. He was a happy dog, but I have to guess that he’d had little to no “upbringing.” He wasn’t feral, by any means. He just had no idea of how to behave inside a house. He’d recently been neutered and he was well out of puppyhood, so it’s likely he’d been outside most of his life, doing what he did with no real human supervision. At least, that’s how it seemed in the first five minutes of his (as it turned out) very short visit to my home.
I brought him from the crate in my car, on leash, into my house.
He sniffed a lot, both on the porch and in the front hall. I had cats and other dogs (no ferrets at the time), so there was certainly a lot of information for him to smell. I kept the leash on while he did that. We walked into my kitchen. I showed him the dogs’ water bowl and invited him to drink, but he was too distracted with sniffing the place to want water at that moment. We moved back into the front hall, with me letting him decide where to go, keeping the leash slack. He concentrated on the floor.
I opened the door to the living room, knowing my own pets were well secured elsewhere in the house; he would not be meeting them immediately. First, I wanted him to have a chance to check out all the common areas of the house. We walked into the living room and, as we did, I dropped his leash. He was doing so well at not pulling, I wanted him to have more freedom of movement. The living room was already dog- and cat-proofed because of my own pets, so I knew he’d be safe.
Because of my own excitement about his visit and, at that time, my inexperience with foster pets, I’d forgotten to question whether I would be safe . . . or at least, whether my house and home would be safe! I learned, believe me, I learned. The little heeler mix taught me to pay a heck of a lot more attention. Homeowner’s insurance would never cover what happened next!
He took a few steps away from me, still sniffing, nose to the floor. He raised his head and looked around, curiously and calmly . . .
He spun in place several times, then launched himself at my sectional. My beloved, relatively new, expensive sectional, upholstered in nubby natural cotton—my first new furniture as an adult. My spotless white sectional. He ran up one side and across it horizontally, zigzagging up and down from its cushions to its top, peeing all the way!
Long story short, what could I do? I crated him and later took him back to the shelter. I wrote on his evaluation that he was not housebroken and might have a problem with marking. It was more information than the shelter had had about him before he peed on my sofa, for sure, and I hoped that it would help. I do remember hearing that he was adopted by a family who lived on a farm, and that was good. They knew what they were getting, so I did them and the dog a service.
The sectional recovered.
(The faster you get to dog pee on upholstery, the better. I don’t have any special secret for cleaning. In the case of my sectional, I used warm water and Ivory dish soap, being very careful not to soak through to the stuffing underneath the upholstery. I remember using my hair dryer to speed the process. It came out fine—it wasn’t stained and it didn’t stink. I got very, very lucky on that one!)
I made a similar mistake many years later that reminded me of the lesson I learned from the sectional-spraying heeler mix, and caused me to up my game when new animals entered my home. This time, it was a rookie error, for sure, demonstrating to me that I had become much too complacent about what access animals in my home had to anything that might be an issue.
The day I bought my new dog home—a stray straight from the shelter—he did something so typically doggish that it should not have been a surprise to me in any way. I had become so used to the “good” behavior of my own dogs, and of other owned dogs who visited my home, that I had forgotten—again—to expect the unexpected, to cover all my bases, to think like a dog, not like a human!
My new dog ate my leather gloves.
The gloves were sitting on top of the railing of the staircase to my second floor, in the front hall of my house, next to the little bowl where I keep my keys.
They were my favorite gloves.
They matched my purse.
They must have been delicious.
It was one of those “roll up a newspaper and hit yourself over the head” moments.
He was a stray, dammit. Off the streets, background unknown, just neutered at a year plus, adopted once but returned almost immediately for being “too active.” (That was accurate!) He also ate, it turned out, cigarette butts off the street and anything that smelled good and might be food!
I still miss those gloves. I kept the second one, the one that he’d only chewed on by the time I found him. The first glove—the one he ate entirely—could have killed him, I suppose, if it had stuck in his digestive system. It certainly would have meant surgery to remove it, and he had just had anesthetic for his neuter. And doubtless I’d have been paying for that myself.
Luckily for both of us, the glove passed naturally. He clearly had developed a strong digestive system during his time on the streets. I’ve yet to see that dog even throw up, and I’ve had him more than three years! I will say, in his and my defense, that my leather gloves were the last thing he ate that he shouldn’t have. He’s not destructive at all with toys, learned quickly not to chew on furniture, has no interest in books or other valuables—he has even ignored all subsequent gloves!
So, your first foster animal is due—what do you expect?
Expect the unexpected!
Don’t blame the animal . . . but learn from the experience!
Information on fostering animals can be found online. Here are some resources:
Before You Foster:
https://www.petfinder.com/animal-shelters-and-rescues/fostering-dogs/before-you-foster/
Pet Fostering Tips:
http://dogtime.com/dog-health/dog-ages-and-dog-stages/2312-pet-foster-tips
Becoming a Foster:
http://www.animalsheltering.org/resources/magazine/sep_oct_2006/becoming_foster_parent.pdf
Fostering a Shelter Pet:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/23/foster-shelter-pet_n_6720804.html
