Furever Homes

Thus far, in our dog fostering experience, we have had our very first dog be adopted into a great family, plus two kittens who also found great new forever homes. Our second dog foster ended in what is called a “foster fail,” meaning we failed to allow the dog to be adopted. It’s the total opposite of how things are in child foster care, where the desire is for children to be placed in a home that, if they are not reunified, they can stay permanently. So, we have a new dog, Sherlock (who we sometimes call Bailey). We had a 7 week old puppy, who we named Mabel, but she recently went onto her forever home. The same day we got Mable, we said good-bye to our third foster, Skye. Chica Marie had some difficulty when Mocha (the first dog) and the kittens were adopted, so I decided to take her along. She was close to Skye and it was hard for her to give her up, but seeing the new family and playing with the children and Skye helped Chica Marie process it all. Skye was with her new family for just over two weeks when we were asked to take her back. Her adoptive family thought she was too attached to Chica Marie and that was why she wasn’t getting along in their house. She refused to go potty outside, no matter how long they walked her and she was mean to their cats. I was heartbroken for Skye but could at least offer her familiarity in coming back to our home. She’s been back for a little over a week and she’s doing ok. She loved Mabel, the puppy, but she seems content being back. I want to take her on a walk and see if she does go potty because I don’t know if I believe what the other family was saying. I wonder if she needs to have a canine companion because she loves Sherlock and the puppy and if Prancer (our little Pomeranian/Chihuahua mix) would let her, she would love Prancer too. She is young, just a year old, so she does need training, but I think she is trainable, she wants to please, she loves people. It was hard for Chica Marie, as much as she loved getting Skye back, she struggled with understanding how the adoption could be dissolved. We are still talking about it, bit-by-bit, especially now that her adoption is back on the table. Still, it does give us a framework to talk about her adoption, without talking about her adoption, so I think, in some ways, it is helping us as much as it is helping the dogs. At least, I hope it is. Hopefully, soon Skye will find her forever home. Again.