Dogs I Have Known — Part Three

Foster dogs

I will talk about the fosters first, followed by the neighbour dogs in a different section.

As previously mentioned, we lost our long-time dog, Moka, in 2008. A huge loss. It took us a while to feel like adopting again.

An acquaintance suggested we consider fostering for a bit since there is always a big need for foster homes. They gave us the name of a privately owned place with a great reputation, and we contacted them. The result was that they liked us and had a pair of rescued Spaniels that badly needed a foster home. They had come from an abusive breeding situation and were not well socialized. It was a mother and son.

They were house-trained and liked to go for walks and seemed pleasant enough. They quickly found the joy of sleeping on beanbags with soft blankets, and the male liked to chase balls up and down the stairs.

The female preferred to lie in comfortable spaces and snooze.

We took them out to the park three times daily, and things seemed to be going well for a couple of months.

One day, while they were having their breakfast, the male brutally attacked the female with no provocation. This was a behaviour that grew worse daily. As well, he began to try to savage dogs we met on our walks. We told the rescue people, and they were rightfully concerned. I happened to find some information about something called Spaniel Rage, which is apparently what this little guy had. Evidently not much one can do for it. I explained that to the rescue people, but they did not know about this and seemed surprised. They had no helpful suggestions as to how we could cope with this behaviour.

Meantime, a person had applied to adopt them. So the rescue place arranged for this lady to come and meet them, and we took them to the park so she could see how they were. The male showed his bad manners as soon as he spotted another dog, and thwarted going after it, immediately attacked his mother.

In spite of his horrible attitude, this nice lady liked them both and based on her extensive experience with difficult dogs, decided to adopt them. She lived on a farm and thought the aggression could be dealt with by giving him lots of running around and training. Knowing how much they loved the beanbag, we sent it along with them.

This lady kept in touch with us, and, at first, seemed to be making some progress, but after a few months, the male attacked her husband really viciously with no provocation. I heard later that she had to euthanize the male. A very sad situation. She did keep the poor old mother dog.

Next came Harry the Beagle. Harry was supposed to stay with us for four days because his foster mom had to go out of town and couldn’t take him.

Harry had serious separation anxiety and couldn't be left even for 2 minutes before he would begin to destroy everything in sight and howl, as only a Beagle can. He had been driving his foster mom nuts. She lived in an apartment and was at her wit's end as to what to do with him.

Harry was very sweet when he wasn’t freaking out. He liked to place his head on one’s knees and cuddle up and go to sleep.

Harry also liked to savage other dogs while out walking. Woe betide anyone getting in his way. You were in danger of getting bitten when he went after another dog. We were only able to cope with poor Harry for two days, after which we contacted the rescue and told them that we could not keep him one day more. They were really mad at us, and Harry was the last dog we fostered for them. We never heard what happened to poor Harry.

Our next fosters were two of our neighbours’ dogs. Finn and Tessa.

Since early in 2008, our neighbours had been lobbying for us to adopt the youngest one, Tessa, a puppy they had removed from an abusive home. We were dealing with our terminally ill dog, Moka, and were unwilling to bring a puppy into the picture for fear it would upset him. After Moka had passed and we had done two short stints at fostering, Pats’ husband had a stroke, and they really needed to reduce the number of dogs and the general chaos at the house.

Pat had a huge Rotweiller called Megan, who was friendly on the surface but who I never really trusted. Ed had a small Shepherd-cross that he had adopted, called Duchess, who was fanatically attached to him. She had been mistreated by her former owner and was very paranoid. These two barked incessantly.

Then, adding to the chaos, were Clover and Finn, the two dogs owned by Ed and Pats’ daughter, who was staying with them at the time. Along with the two cats she had brought with her, to add to the confusion.

The general confusion and noise did not work well for little Tessa. All the dogs would race around the yard, barking furiously, driving themselves and the assorted neighbours mad. Tessa would head indoors as soon as she could and hide out somewhere more peaceful, resisting all efforts to get her outside again. I would hear Pat screeching at her to come out, while Tessa got herself firmly wedged under furniture and out of Pat’s reach.

After Ed, our neighbour, had the stroke, and since we were currently dogless, we had no really good reason not to help out, so into our home came Tessa, now two and a half years old, and one of her housemates, Finn—a very high-strung and nervous Border collie. We drew the line at taking little Clover. So, she remained with Pat temporarily.

For the next few months, we fostered Finn and Tessa.

Finn was very hyper and restless and loved to go for walks and chase frizbees.

He had been picked up by a rescue organization in Alberta, during a snowstorm. Starving and terrified, and needing to get away from the noisy rescue place, he had then been adopted by Pat’s daughter, who was on her way back to Ontario, with two rescue cats.

Pat’s daughter arrived from out west with this carload of rescues and, having no place of her own, asked to stay with her parents until she could find a place. So that is how Finn ended up there. While the daughter was ostensibly looking for a place of her own, she somehow came across Clover, a young Border Collie cross, who also needed to be rescued. So Clover got added to Pat's household. Fast forward to 2009, and we step in to foster Tessa and Finn.

Meantime, at our place, Finn seemed to enjoy the relative quiet with just himself and Tessa. We discouraged them from barking without cause and rewarded them for good behaviour. They both enjoyed our drives to the lake, and we would often stop at a local leash-free park and let them roar about. We both took them out for multiple walks to our local parks, and Tessa, who was horribly overweight when she first arrived, soon slimmed down and became as good at long walks as Finn.

We got really attached to them, and Tessa became obsessively attached to us. Time flew by, and Pat’s daughter finally found a place of her own so she could take her dogs and cats away from her mom’s place. So Finn and Tessa left our house. Finn was pleased to be reunited with his owner, but Tessa was far from pleased to return to Pat’s place. So next comes Tessa’s story.

And many thanks to Dennett for this challenge.