Fetch!

Foster 7: Adelyn

UPDATE: After 2 months at the shelter, nearly being euthanized and 2 months with us, Addy was adopted yesterday (May 17)!


Our current foster dog, Adelyn (or Adrock, as she's known to her posse), is smart. She's scary smart. Like, I'm pretty sure that she has developed complex algorithms to determine when we will give her treats and uses elaborate engineering to determine how best to get into the trash can.

Smart dogs are awesome. You can see them figure things out, like how to sit or stay. They can also be really annoying, like when they figure out how to dismantle a baby gate.


Also, normally, you can wear out a hyper dog by just letting them play with Buddy for 30 minutes. It's loud. They run into the furniture a lot. But when it's over, they'll lay down for the rest of the night panting. Adrock is different. She's like a boxer who anticipates a long fight and conserves her blows. Jaw gaping, she floats like a butterfly and stings like an alligator. At first Buddy thinks he's winning, but after a few rounds the poor guy ends up laying on his back, exhausted, while Addy chews on his leg.

Addy was adopted after a couple weeks in our house, but the poor thing was returned. She actually sulked for two days after she was returned. We've kept her as our foster since, hoping she gets adopted without having to return to the shelter. (Of course, we always hope for that... it's much easier to hand a dog off to a new home than to return it to a small concrete cage.)


Also, ummm... she has an odd number of nipples; nine of them. And they don't line up neatly in rows. Instead they zig-zag across her belly. Is it weird that I find that endearing?

Foster 6

We've named our new foster Laney Boggs, but she's less of a dog and more of a small black bear. She's stout - part Rotteweiler. I like to think the other part is Bernese Mountain Dog. Every morning, when I let her out of her crate, she crawls into my lap... all 60 lbs. of her. She's got a little growing to do yet, I think.





Plus, Gracie Ann (finally) got adopted!

Work (Properly)

Have you ever been excited to buy a new vacuum cleaner?



Me neither.

Foster 5.5?

Gracie Ann is back; apparently she's become the boss dog at the shelter, so she needs some time on the outside to get rehabilitated. Here's 30 seconds of her playing King of the Hill on the furniture with Buddy - you'll notice that she's winning.

Shock the Monkey

Shock the monkey.

Charlotte: Foster Five

Charlotte was our fifth foster - a blue tick coon hound stray that had just had a litter of puppies. She was emaciated; might have had worms; and her teats were chapped, full of milk, and obviously hurting her. Plus she smelled really bad. See her ribs in this photo?


While she was recuperating, she enjoyed sitting on the couch...


Sitting on the couch some more...


And wagging her really long tail. In fact, she wags her tail so much that she cut the end of her tail (what can I say, she was tragic), which then sprayed blood all over our walls and furniture at knee-height every time she wagged. I took a picture of this for the blog, but it was kinda morbid so I didn't post it. Sufficient to say, it looked like there was an elfin massacre in our living room.

This is called "happy tail" or "split tail," and is pretty common apparently for breeds like Great Danes. It's really tough to heal. Fortunately, Charlotte let us bandage her tail.


First we cleaned the cut with alcohol. Then we put on a neosporin-type antibiotic cream. Then we added a piece of gauze and wrapped it in athletic tape (the cloth type so that it breathes a little). This was changed daily.

Some dogs chew off their bandages. For them, people have developed crazy methods of tail-hiding, such as this one which requires a trip to the hardware store.

Her tail seemed to be healing but we don't know for sure because Charlotte was adopted; our first dog to get a new home while still in our care! She's got a great new family, a nice fenced back yard and a cat.