Fostering Saves Lives

Take it from a person who currently has got two medium sized dogs and a cat in her studio apartment... having pets is a huge responsibility. It's hard work, sometimes it gets expensive and super stressful. It's the best thing that has ever happened to me but it has also cost me great sacrifices. But all that doesn't matter at all because when I look at my 3 perfect fur babies, the only feeling I have is overflowing unconditional love.

Let's start with our first and the only one who wasn't a foster failure! Mila is a rescue turned into a princess. She's a boxer and pit mix. We say she's a boxer mix because we live in an apartment with strict 'no pit' policy, but let's be honest, she's a boxer-pit mix. In my opinion the whole 'no pit policy' is incredibly shallow and created by people who have no idea about dogs whatsoever. We adopted her when she was 7 months old and she's the most loveable dog we could ever ask for. The most dangerous thing about Mila is her ability to suffocate people with her huge tongue and her endless love. She thinks that my husbands and mine pre-game is and invitation for her to chip in with her tongue. She literally would pin us down to the floor just to lick our face so much we can't breathe. In other words... She's sweet but psycho!

Morty is a foster failure. He was our very first try to be fosters and basically from the moment I saw him I knew he couldn't leave our house. He's an American English Coonhound and if it was up to him he'd chase the deer around the woods all day long (he has run away multiple times and even got a poor deer run over by a car...). He probably would occasionally come back for dinner and a nap on our beanbag. When we got him, he was in a pretty bad shape, super skinny and with loads of bites all over his body. Slowly he healed and got a bit bigger but he's definitely a rescue in a true form. He doesn't like sleeping with us, it took him a very long time to be able to nap without changing his spot every 5 minutes. He spent his 1st week at our house hauling for hours for unknown reasons. He wouldn't lick us at all, only recently he started licking my hand but still gives us kisses only with his nose. Lately he started curling into us which is super cute and even if we have had him for over 8 months now, we still keep on gaining his trust day by day.

We also had a foster kitten named Cleo. She was the best kitten I've ever had (the first kitten I've ever had) and I'm pretty sure she considered me as her mum since she was abandoned at the vet at the age of 7 weeks. She had a rare disease called FeLV that causes cats to die from contact with other cats. Because of that she couldn't see her mum anymore. That's why once she got used to me she would end up sucking on my cheeks, on my clothes and hands and nose and my lips. She would suck on anything since she couldn't suck on her mother's nipples anymore. It was incredibly sad but probably the cutest thing that has ever happened to me. Due to her disease Cleo couldn't be in the shelter either. She would die from the contact with other cats or she'd get them sick. They would euthanize her if we didn't agree to foster her. She was a perfect example of the whole 'Fostering Saves Lives' thing. You might think it's an exaggeration but for a lot of animals this is it: either get fostered or killed by a shelter... In the end Cleo got adopted by a wonderful family and her new mum says that she found a soulmate in her family's dog. I've been getting loads of amazing pictures and she seems to be as happy as a cat with deadly disease could be!

A while ago, after a Saturday brunch date with my husband, we were driving back home and I was scrolling through social media. Since Facebook and Instagram perfectly know that I'm obsessed with animals I wasn't surprised to see plenty of pet related posts in my feed. One caught my attention more than others. It was a Husky, his name was Lobo and he was supposed to be euthanized on Tuesday because no one wanted to adopt him out of the kill shelter in North Carolina. With doubt in my voice I asked my husband if he was okay with me saying we could foster him. He said it was fine (probably hoping it will fall through like most of my plans). Before I realized, I was on multiple phone calls with rescue people and others trying to figure out how I could pull Lobo out of the shelter. I was ready to drive all the way to North Carolina (5 hours one way) in order to pick him up and bring to our home. I was told he had some biting history but I didn't want to think about it. I just wanted to save him. Still, On Monday night I was told that they found a nice shelter closer to where he was at that moment and he was going to be transported there, where he'd have vet care and people who'd find him a permanent adopter. I was happy for him...

The next day I was excited to find out Lobo was on his way to that nice shelter. Everything seemed to work out just fine. I was happy that I didn't have to drive for 5 hours to pick him up. Not until later that evening I was informed by the lady who was supposed to pick him up that Lobo didn't make it to the new shelter. He was so aggressive when they were trying to take him into the car that the shelter decided it was too dangerous for people involved... they ended up leaving him in the kill shelter and putting him down later on. I cried for him a lot, I wish I could've saved him. Later I found out he was chained his whole life and that's how he developed his aggression issues. I wasn't able to help him... so I decided to save the ones I could.

On the same shelter's page I saw a post about a 9-week-old kitten. His 'availability' was up on the same day as Lobo's (which meant he could be euthanized at any time after that). I made up my mind, I was going to save that kitten. He was the same age as our previous foster Cleo that got adopted only a few weeks before and she left a huge whole in our hearts. When we let her go I had so much pain in my heart that for a moment I felt like I could never get over loosing her. The fact that this little kitten was the same age as her was a sign for me. I couldn't have this 9-week-old precious little thing killed. After looking into his situation I realized he had a brother. 'Okay' I said... 'two kittens it is.'

Unfortunately, the kittens were 'rescue only' which meant I couldn't pull them out on my own. I needed to be authorized by a rescue. After messaging many people from the shelter's Facebook page I got a number of the rescue and they said it was okay for me to get the kittens BUT their mum was also in the shelter... I said I'd talk to my husband and call them back. We talked... he was not happy with me. 3 cats on top of our two medium sized dogs and all of them in our little studio apartment? Not ideal... but in my heart I knew I couldn't leave the mum behind. Before I knew it I was on the way with two kennels in the back of a rental car, driving down to North Carolina to 'Save the Kittens' as I posted on Instagram.

The pick up went smoothly but being at the shelter was awful... it was loud from all the dogs barking and winning. On the cat side, there were cats in small cages put against the wall. I wished I could take all of them. I wished I could save them all... but I couldn't so I focused on getting the three of them home safely.

By the time I stopped by a pet store and got back home I've spent around $500 total in order to get those kittens settled. Rental car, gas, Airbnb because I didn't want to drive over 10 hours in one day and pet supplies.

I woke up the next day and I found myself with 3 cats, a crazy pit/boxer mix and her incredibly loud brother coonhound (plus my beloved forever patient and forgiving husband) in a studio apartment with no bedroom door and living room just a step away from the office and another step forward... kitchen.

The cats lived in our bathroom, stress free from our very curious dogs who wanted to sniff them 24/7 and lick them all day long. To be honest we had absolutely no trust to leave them alone all together. Our dogs were used to playing really rough and they had no idea how to act around those tiny little creatures. On top of that the mum was insanely protective and seemed a little like she was going to kill them if they got close enough to her. We named the her Luna and the boys Ace and Loofy. I'm pretty sure that the boys' names were supposed to come from some Japanese cartoon but I loved them and since my husband put up with all of my craziness at least I could let him name the pets.

Step by step we started socializing everyone but it was a lot of hard work. It took forever for everyone to get used to each other but day by day we saw progress! That was the best part. First contact with each other, first little tiny lick, first little paw in one of the dogs' face. All the firsts were amazing. Soon the kittens got adopted together and we were left with the mum. You might not be surprised when I say we ended up keeping her. Luna Dorothea Dearing became another furry member of our family. Humans got officially outnumbered. My heart became full. I have never felt so much love and peace with my life. We got Luna only because we didn't want to leave her behind. Meanwhile, we saved her kittens and we gave her a forever home. These days she absolutely loves our dogs. She comes up to them and gives them baths with her tongue. She's fully obsessed with me as well. Recently she started sleeping with us. She loves playing with tennis balls and get zoomies everyday around 11PM. She is the ultimate foster fail, a result of Facebook targeted adds and my crazy need of saving everyone. Still, she became the reason why we stopped fostering. Not because we have too many pets, there's never enough! I just realized my heart was full and I owed my current family members to devote all of my attention to them and them only.

We don't have much in life. We have average jobs with an average income and less than an average-sized apartment. Still, I'd give up all of this if that would save more pets. Mila, Morty, Cleo, Luna, Ace and Loofy are the lucky ones we managed to help. Lobo was one exception I'll never forget.

Fostering saves lives, literally. Each time I had to give away the kittens to their new families, I was devastated. However, today I am so happy that I got to save them and find them families that seemed to be even better than us. They love them and cherish them. Meanwhile, we get to love and cherish our babies. Mila, Luna and Morty are everything to me. There's not a thing I wouldn't do for them. I'm so thankful for them walking me everyday in between working from home, for making me a part of this amazing dog park community and giving me their unconditional love every day. They are strays, rescues and foster failures. They are also the family I could never imagine I'd ever have.