June 9, 2009

Once I learned of Riley's struggle, I was faced with the question: Do I continue to foster dogs with no homes and risk Riley's recovery, or do I stop fostering, and just focus on the dogs that I have?  I was stuggling with this decision a few weeks ago, when I ran into the Stockon Animal Shelter foster program coordinator at the dog park (my other dog was in serious need of play). He understood my predicament, but then told me about two australian cattledog pups about 5 months old, who were going to be put down last week, but he talked them into giving him a few days to find a foster home for them. They had been at the shelter for about a month, but were deemed "unadoptable" because of how rowdy and untrained they were. Well, any of you who have been faced with this decision can probably guess what I said..."What! You cant put those little babies to sleep! They have not even been given a chance to show what good dogs they could be! So here they are, at my place now. For the first three weeks I had them I kept them separated from Riley. At first they were just in his yard at separate times from him, then he was allowed to sniff them through the fence for a few seconds, then more and more time sniffing. Now that Riley has recovered from his surgery, they play in the same yard. While it was a lot of work, trying to keep them separated, this will probably be my default way of taking in new fosters from now on. I just cannot take the risk of bombarding his system with all of those new germs 24/7  like i did before.