Meet Groot. One of 3 emergency fosters that my daughter took in a few weeks ago.
She’s taking a break from physical fostering because of all the failures 
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She’s also discovered that two adolescent 'doodle rescues that are matched for age, missed puppyhood and early training makes for a lot of mayhem about the house so…grandma to the rescue.
Separate living arrangements and training strategies = peace and relaxed pups and peeps.
Sir Fur with me…
Max and Groot with them…
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So a “fail” because she can’t bring herself to give them to someone else? Completely adorable. A friend just took in a kitten that is too young to adopt out as a “foster,” after losing one of hers. That kitten is going no where. I guess “foster” is just another word for fur baby.
IP,
who is going to enjoy being an empty nester for a while before considering another fur baby…the one we lost almost a year ago was too perfect to consider replacing…though we may consider volunteering to walk the dogs at the shelter
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Yes.
Max (the big Doodle) was her first foster. A favour for one of her vet friends who was already overloaded with fosters. Just 3 days in the house and he’d captured her heart. Sir Fur was sprung from our local very overloaded animal shelter shortly after. She’s had a series of fosters since and, by virtue of heavy promotion and providing spay/neuters and vaccines “on the house” had been able to resist some very adorable puppers and get them adopted. Groot sort of slipped through the cracks
I was seriously considering him but circumstances dictated otherwise. The two doodles…both fine dogs…are a bit too rambunctious together. Big, adolescent and with no appropriately timed training. Both Max and Sir Fur have calmed down noticeably after a few days apart and puppy classes for Groot are going well with the ability to follow up at home
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Their biggest talent. We never actually trained our boy, but he never seemed to need it. He was 3 months old when we got him. Other than taking a bite out of a ham sandwich that our son nonchalantly had dangling right in front of his nose, he never took anything in his mouth that he shouldn’t. With all 4 of us yelling at him with that mistake, from then on he always made sure we were really offering him a bite to eat, sitting patiently until we insisted he imbibe. Those poodle mixes are crazy smart, not to mention cute!
17 years of sweetness.
IP
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Seriously cute and smart. I think this is why there are so many in shelters. Apparently, there was a big jump in popularity with Covid as folk fell in love with these live teddy bears…or, in Sir Fur’s case, lambs. Breeders were churning them out with little pre-purchase education and buyers found themselves with grooming bills and demanding pets.
Both Max and Sirfy spent most of what should’ve been their puppyhood almost full time in a crate. Sir Fur got his name at the shelter and I think it’s a reference to the state of his coat when he was dumped as he looked as if he’d had one of those “emergency shears” that are given to dogs that’re a huge mess of matted fur.
People…you have to wonder
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The selfish nature of man squared. Add in pets that never needed to learn independence until humans had to return to office…But I was privileged. Used to joke that we had the only dog with a SAHM. Every time I tried to go back to work, DH would tell me it wasn’t fair to the dog!
We will be suckers if we go to a shelter. The only protection I have is a need for a hypoallergenic dog. That prevents us leaving with a dozen at a time.
IP,
waiting to get some travel out of our system
Thank you for the bestest thread.
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We allow our 7 year old Golden Retriever “Gandhi” (adopted from a recently deceased friend) to roam freely in our neighborhood because both humans and dogs love him. Six months ago he came home with a street dog he had buddied up with and that we adopted, and ever since we have been “dealing” with him (“Tinga”).
Tinga is a mix of the very tough local medium sized light brown street dog, some German Shepherd, and I am now convinced an 1/8 or so of Beagle. He is brilliant, strong, can smell rabbit or fox scent across a kilometer and days of time. He has a ring of horrific scars around his neck, almost certainly from being tied up with barbed wire as an involuntary watchdog – an ugly local custom.
Now that he knows he is safe and loved he will do anything to please me. We are still establishing that does not mean attacking visitors or retrieving 20 year old cow bones from two feet under my garden.
He is also a brilliant and persistent escape artist. He can easily and quickly unhook any normal leash from his collar by going to some conveniently low branch of a bush and persistently “working the problem” for from two minutes to an hour. The only leash we can use on him now is one I custom made that has a screw-down lock. And of course the leash has to be steel.
Love and Hate run the universe.
david fb
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LOL. We humans only think we are in charge.
We tried hard to crate train our dog. He was only 3 lbs at 3 months and would throw himself against the metal crate until he popped the top and jumped out. Did this twice. Moved him to the mudroom with a baby gate which he hurdled. Yes, 3 lbs is a short dog. With each escape he would come running up proudly to our bedroom to show us how smart he was. Sleeping alone was not in his past, nor in his future if we wanted peace. We justified it with not wanting him to get hurt.
Whenever he needed something, he would just come and sit in front of us with the stupid human look until we figured out what he needed. Not a vocal dog, he would simply sit there, backing away if we tried to pet him or gave him some sort of attention he wasn’t looking for. He was very patient in his efforts to train his stupid humans. The picture I posted is from one of his stupid human moments.
Our lives were definitely so much richer for him being in it.
IP
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That first picture is double trouble. What are those two thinking!
IP
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