Confessions of a First Time Foster

We’re planning for Angelique’s arrival tomorrow night. We got her relinquishment form yesterday. Yikes! She’s a rescued “brood bitch” from an Amish puppy mill.

If you saw Oprah’s show on puppy mills, you know what misery she’s had for the first 2-1/2 years of her life. She’s not housetrained, and is almost certainly anti-housetrained. That is, she has likely learned to live in her own filth because she hasn’t had an alternative, which means that we can’t just crate her to teach her housetraining.

She’s still all matted, and (according to the owner relinquishing her) needs a shave. That owner I guess tried to rescue her and had to give it up. Although she apparently had Angelique for several weeks, and I’d have thought a shave would be the first order of business. ::grumble:: Along with a spay, which also hasn’t been done yet.

We found out that Angelique’s a tiny little girl; the owner worked on putting weight on her, and managed to add some weight to the 6 pounds she arrived with. (By contrast, Cognac weighs 13 pounds, and Paris unfortunately weighs more.)

We haven’t scheduled a visit with our vet yet, but Angelique’s shave is already on order for Saturday morning — the rescue network will reimburse us. On the positive side, at 2-1/2 years old Angelique’s very young for a rescue — the mills don’t usually give up their bitches until they’ve worn them out at 6 years or older. So hopefully she’ll readily adapt to being a beloved pet instead of livestock.

We’ll have her at least long enough to get her spayed; the network won’t place dogs until they’ve been altered. But there’s a family that wants her, so we may not have to deal with issues like housetraining. Except in that we can’t give her run of the house, or even a towel in her crate until we find out whether she’ll keep it clean.

This isn’t just about Jackson’s story. Other First-Time Fosters will join me here to talk about their experiences. The first to arrive is a Foster who wishes to be known as Bitter Lily.

BL is about to take in a young female, a rescued brood bitch from a Puppy Mill. There’s great satisfaction in taking these dogs from their miserable conditions, but they come with baggage and their own set of challenges.

As I understand the story, someone else rescued this dog from the Puppy Mill. Although her intentions were good, she didn’t quite have the wherewithal to complete the job. I got that info secondhand — BL will give you all the details when she posts.

You’ll find this under the “Angel: PuppyMill Rescue” category. Just click that category to see all of Bitter Lily’s posts in sequence.