Happily Failing "Fostering 101"

Despite the best intentions of we humans, sometimes when we're fostering a dog or puppy in preparation for it to find its' forever home we end up realizing that our home is the perfect place for the animal.

We may be attracted to the animal's personality. S/he may remind us of a past furry friend. Life may just feel different and better with the dog or puppy.

We have a few failed "fostering 101" stories in our Real Good Dog Rescue band of volunteers.

Don't worry that this happens everytime or happens to everyone. If it did, we'd be unable to ever have sufficient homes for rescued dogs and puppies!

The Russell's Fail at Fostering 101 AND Fostering 102

Cindy and Jerry Russell have worked with Real Good Dog Rescue since January 2008. Since then, they have fostered 13 dogs or puppies. They've failed fostering twice - once with the very first canine (a puppy, Tipper) they fostered and the second time with an adult dog (Jessie Wiggles) they fostered a few months later. Says Jerry, We fell in love with them. We couldn't bear to see them go out of our lives. We wanted the best for them and, for us, we felt the best for them was staying with us.

Here are pictures of Tipper, the puppy in January 2008, and Jessie Wiggles, the adult dog in August 2008. Can you see how the Russell's found them to be so adorable?

Says Cindy, We've never regretted our decision to adopt these two who have brought so much joy to our family. We've fostered other dogs, many who we've found it to be VERY hard letting them go to a new family. But we realize that we can't be selfish and when we find a better home and situation for the animals, we need to let them go. They do, though, stay forever on our hearts and in our minds.

2 failures out of 13 fosters is a 15% failure rate. Not so bad, eh?

We'll post more failed fostering 101 stories in the future. If you're a volunteer with Real Good Dog Rescue and have a story you'd like to share, send it to us.