Choosing a Foster Dog

Since we are now fully approved, trained, and available fosters, it was time to choose our first foster dog. Each day, the RAGOM foster plea goes out to foster families with bios of dogs waiting for someone to rescue them from their situation. Some are in more desparate situations than others but they come with any number of issues that could be a deterrent for a newbie foster family like ours. For example, puppy mill dogs will generally come in not knowing how to walk stairs, are extremely shy and unused to human contact, generally not house trained, and need lots of TLC. I didn't think this was the way to go for our first foster experience. Really, what did I hope to gain from this experience? Well, honestly, I didn't want to have to walk to the ends of the earth to place a few good dogs in adoptive homes. I wanted to take in a dog who was well adjusted and healthy, who was merely the victim of some non-traumatic circumstance. I wanted a dog that was easily adoptable, gentle, loving, and who would be able to come in and leave easily. Would this be possible? Who knew?

Well, as the days rolled by, I held out until I found a dog that fit just that description- his name was Junior. He is a 2.5 year old purebred golden whose family was going through a divorce. I suppose that he was well loved but he had been relegated to the basement for long periods of alone time. This was the dog for us! Junior was coming a long way from Custer, SD to Wisconsin. The trip was so long, in fact, that it took several attempts in order to organize the caravan that would bring him on his journey-Fortunately, RAGOM pulled it off and as of today, Junior is scheduled to join our family before the end of April. We're excited to have him and I am already starting to plan our walks, RAGOM event outings, and other such trips. I think Junior will be confused after being passed along through so many hands to get here but hopefully he will realize that he is being treated well and that he will have lots more human contact than before. Surely he will miss his family, despite his loneliness. But, we will try to get him the best new adoptive family we can find.

Well, while awaiting Junior's arrival, we got a little practice in on puppy sitting- our neighbors have two 10-week old golden lab puppies and were going out of town for easter. So, we had house guests for 3 days! It was wonderful and exhausting at the same time-but the cuteness factor made up for any inconvenience. I have posted some photos of the sweeties below. Cross your fingers for us on Junior's arrival-