Another Good Dog Read online

  Another

  Good Dog

  One Family and Fifty Foster Dogs

  CARA SUE ACHTERBERG

  For all the dogs who never make it out the front door of the shelter.

  For all the shelter employees who have to make the hard decisions.

  And for all the dog-hearted people who are working tirelessly to change the situation.

  Contents

  ONE

  We Can Foster Dogs?

  TWO

  A Foster Puppy!

  THREE

  Hooked

  FOUR

  Babysitting

  FIVE

  The Dangers of Winnie-the-Pooh

  SIX

  Foster Fail?

  SEVEN

  Heartbreak

  EIGHT

  The Yin and Yang of Puppies

  NINE

  Puppydom

  TEN

  Hero Dog

  ELEVEN

  The Healing Power of Safety

  TWELVE

  There’s an Adopter for Everyone

  THIRTEEN

  What Lies Beneath

  FOURTEEN

  Trust

  FIFTEEN

  In the Groove

  SIXTEEN

  Pup Overload

  SEVENTEEN

  The Best-Laid Plans

  EIGHTEEN

  Breed Racism

  NINETEEN

  Vacation

  TWENTY

  Making a Difference

  TWENTY-ONE

  Falling Down on the Job

  TWENTY-TWO

  Second Chances

  TWENTY-THREE

  Fiftieth Time’s the Charm

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Happy Endings

  Epilogue

  YOU Can Foster, Too!

  Acknowledgments

  Another Good Dog

  ONE

  We Can Foster Dogs?

  I guess it says something about our marriage that my husband didn’t argue when I told him we had to drive forty minutes to a bowling alley parking lot just off the Baltimore Beltway at midnight to pick up a beagle from South Carolina.

  It was five degrees on the car’s thermometer when we pulled off the Beltway.

  “How do we know who they are?” asked Nick as we drove past the bright neon entrance.

  I scanned the parking lot. “There,” I pointed. Multiple SUVs with motors running were parked next to a streetlamp where a small group of people gathered around one open trunk. We parked a few spaces away and watched as the group of mostly women chatted while handing out dog crates, bags of bedding and food, even cookies, oblivious to the cold. I watched them for another minute and then said, “I’m going to go meet them.”

  “I’ll wait here,” said Nick. Neither of us is very social. We would almost always rather stay home with a deck of cards and a bottle of wine than be forced to talk to strangers, even strangers we know. But this was my gig, so I pulled on my mittens and my friendly face, and opened the door.

  I approached the group tentatively and asked about a crate. “Oh, you’re the new foster,” said one woman. “Big crate, right? You like big dogs?”

  I nodded. I was under the impression that the dog I was picking up would be my foster and I was more of the fosterer, but I would soon learn that dog rescue has a lingo all its own. I’m a foster, and the dog I’m caring for is my foster.

  When Nick saw me struggling with the large crate, he jumped out of the car and hurried over to help. The assembled crate barely fit in the back of our Honda Pilot. I lined it with a mattress pad and an old blanket I’d brought. I’d never crated a dog before, but the rescue had recommended using a crate. I worried it would remind the dog of the cage she’d just left. At the same time, I wasn’t ready to sacrifice my carpet to an un-housebroken dog. What if this dog didn’t like me or my kids or my dog, Gracie? Once I thought about it, a crate seemed like a good idea.

  After we assembled the crate, Nick got back in the warm car, but I wandered over to chat with some of the experienced fosters. I learned that two pregnant mama dogs were on this transport and that several of the families were there to retrieve multiple dogs. More than one at a time? Two of the other Pennsylvania foster moms talked about their experience with state inspections. They’d both fostered over twenty-five dogs in one year which made them qualify as a kennel and required the inspections. I couldn’t imagine doing this twenty-five times. I found it heartening that, to a person, everyone was friendly and kind. They were happy to be there and excited to meet their new foster dogs, even on a night as bitter cold as this.

  My fingers had just about solidified when a white rental van zipped into the parking lot. I followed the others and we formed a semicircle around the back of the van. As soon as the smiling driver, Gina, opened the doors, excited barking echoed across the parking lot. The dogs were in crates stacked one on top of the other and secured with bungee cords. I could not imagine driving twelve hours, or even ten minutes, with that kind of ruckus. Clearly Gina was made of stronger stock than me; either that or she was deaf. She began opening the crates, calling each dog’s name, and waiting for its foster to retrieve it.

  It was just like my favorite children’s book, Go, Dog. Go!, as nearly twenty dogs, big and small, cute and not-so-cute, in every shape and color, were off-loaded and handed over to their foster. The carriers were pulled apart and stacked back in the van. It was an impressive operation made even more so in the brutal elements.

  Nick appeared by my side. “Which one is ours?” he asked.

  Galina, our foster dog, was in a shoebox-sized crate. I crouched down and looked through the grate at her sweet face. She was about the size of a large Chihuahua and shaking like a leaf. I didn’t know how big a beagle was supposed to be, but I thought she’d be bigger than this.

  We pulled her out of her crate and Nick ran her around the parking lot, while Erika, the young woman who seemed to be in charge, explained the meds in the bag she handed me. The cranberry pills would prevent urinary tract infections (UTIs) common in shelter dogs because they hold their pee for so long in transport and out of nervousness. There were also heart worm preventatives, vitamins, probiotics, coconut oil, and flea-and-tick preventative, plus a few goodies—treats, food samples, and a chew bone. She handed me an official folder with Galina’s name on it. “When the records are uploaded, print them out and put them in this.” I nodded as if I knew what she was talking about and carried it all back to the car where Nick was putting Galina in her crate.

  Galina flitted from one side of the crate to the other, watching as we drove, the whites of her eyes flashing. Although it was warm in the car, she was shaking. When I put my hand through the crate wire, she placed her head beneath it and stopped moving, allowing me to pet her. We drove like this until my arm began to cramp from the awkward angle and I pulled it out of the crate.

  “We have a foster dog,” I said, smiling at Nick.

  “She sure is little,” he replied. I’d told the foster coordinator from Operation Paws for Homes (OPH) that we wanted to foster large dogs, since that’s all we’d ever had, but there weren’t any available on this transport. OPH is an all-breed rescue, taking dogs from high-kill shelters in the South and bringing them northward to foster homes in Virginia, Maryland, D.C., and Pennsylvania, where they can be adopted into forever homes. They bring up dogs of every size and breed, even heartworm-positive dogs, pregnant dogs, and litters. I liked the inclusivity of their policies; the idea that any dog (or person) is worth more than another has always irritated my soul.

  We were just getting off the Beltway onto I-83, the highway that would take us back to Pennsylvania, when Galina finally sat down. Her head sagged nearly to the floor of the cage i
n exhaustion, eyes closed, but still she didn’t lay down. She swayed as we made the turn onto I-83.

  That’s when it happened. And while there’s never a good time, these things never seem to happen on a pretty afternoon when you’re not in a hurry. They always happen late at night, on the interstate, when it’s five degrees and you’ve just picked up a beagle from a bowling alley parking lot. There was a loud thunk and then a waffling sound. Nick pulled the car to the shoulder. We’d blown a tire. It was well after midnight now and the temperature had dropped a few more degrees.

  “Now what?” I asked, glancing at Galina who was back to pacing the cage.

  “I change it.”

  “Should I help you?”

  “I got it. Stay here with the dog.” One of the things I’ve always appreciated about my husband is he can fix pretty much anything. I, on the other hand, am not the least bit mechanically inclined. When Nick and I met, I was using a butter knife to adjust the volume on my stereo because the button had popped off and I didn’t know how to replace it. I’ve always been a person who will make do. I get that from my mom who grew up dirt-poor in the coal mining hills of Pennsylvania. I still watch Nick build furniture and shelves, rewire entire rooms, and install appliances, and wonder how I would have survived adulthood without him. I’m not a helpless woman; I’m sure I would have figured something out. I’d probably be using my cutlery for all manner of tools and tricks.

  I waited as Nick jacked up the back of the car and removed the flat. I look out at the cold, clear night and I thought, I am the luckiest woman in the world to be married to a man who can change a tire in frigid temperatures on the side of a highway at midnight after driving me to a bowling alley parking lot to meet some equally crazy people to retrieve a tiny beagle and a very large crate. And to not curse while doing it.

  We arrived home near one in the morning, and offered Galina water and a quick bite to eat before showing her to her accommodations. It had been a long night for us, and even longer for Galina, but she had made it safely from rural South Carolina to our living room. As I watched her cower and shake in her crate, I wondered if I was crazy to have gotten us into this.

  I knelt down in front of her crate and put my hand out. She regarded it and then backed away from me. Fostering a dog seemed like such a good idea a few weeks ago, but now it was really happening. Here was Galina in my living room and so far, she didn’t seem too happy about it.

  “Your life only gets better from here,” I told her before shutting off the lights and going to bed. “Promise.”

  All three of our teenagers were excited about our first foster dog, but I lay in bed that night and wondered—how would we give this little dog away when the time came? And what if it didn’t come? What if no one wanted her?

  When I told people we were going to foster rescue dogs, they looked at me like I had three heads, and asked, “Why?”

  I fumbled around with a noble answer about wanting to help dogs who needed a home, but that wasn’t the real reason. The real reason was more complicated and it started with the painful, ever-present fact that I missed Lucy. Lucy had been my dog for the past seventeen years. She’d run with me every morning at dawn, trained with me for a marathon, and protected me against aggressive dogs, friendly good ole boys, and even the occasional possum. She matched me stride for stride with her long foxhound legs.

  Lucy had perfect manners—she never peed in the house, stole food off the counter, or chased the cats. She was gentle, beautiful, playful, and when the occasion called for it, fierce. For better or for worse, she killed the groundhog that put holes in our pasture, the bunnies that ravaged my garden, and the possums that simply freaked me out. She threatened anyone who threatened us, but backed down as soon as we asked. Lucy put up with every manner of indignity helping to raise our three kids: suffering through multiple costume changes, tea parties, “dog shows,” endless games of fetch, and taking a lot of heat for popping an untold number of soccer balls.

  About six years ago, we brought home a puppy as what Nick called, “the backup dog.” But Lucy needed no backup, which was a good thing as the new puppy proved untrainable. We named the puppy Gracie. She was a hound dog like Lucy, but her relatives must have been the kind of hound dogs who lounged on the front porch while their owners drank moonshine rather than the ones who hunted and tracked. We’ve never determined whether Gracie’s refusal to come when called, perform any kind of trick, or cooperate in any way was because she was dumber than a doornail or smarter than all of us. On a regular basis, she ran through her invisible fence to roll in horse manure or steal the barn cat’s food, always staying out of reach when we tried to catch her. Inevitably, she would show up the next morning sitting just on the far side of her invisible fence line, tired, smelly, and hungry. Someone (not me) would take pity on her, remove her collar and lead her back to the house.

  When Lucy died in the fall, she left a gaping hole in our collective heart. I’d been running alone for the past year as her age had finally caught up with her. She’d wait patiently at the bottom of the drive when I left for my run and hobble happily up the drive with me to the house upon my return. One night her breathing became erratic and she paced the house looking disoriented and scared. We tried to calm her, all of us taking turns sitting with her. She died that night in her sleep. It was a peaceful passing after a long good life. We were blessed, but at the time I thought—never again. That hurt way too much.

  I couldn’t imagine replacing her, so we went back to being a one-dog family. It was time for the backup dog to step up. Only she didn’t. Instead, with Lucy gone, Gracie began going in and out of the house incessantly, staying outside for mere minutes before scratching at the door to come in, only to beg to go back out soon after. It was if she’d lost something and was certain it was outside until she was outside, and then she was sure it was inside.

  She began chewing on her back and legs for no apparent reason. She didn’t have fleas. There was no rash or injury. We tried changing her diet, to no avail. When she was inside, and not begging to go out, she followed me around, parking herself behind my chair when I wrote, interrupting me with her snores and farts. She chased the cats, bit the FedEx delivery man, and escaped the invisible fence on a near daily basis.

  I’d thought I would wait to adopt another dog, wait until I didn’t miss Lucy so much and wouldn’t compare every potential dog to her. But months had passed, and I only missed Lucy more. Gracie’s behavior wasn’t helping. Finally, it dawned on me. Gracie missed Lucy too. With no example or company, she’d gone slightly feral, driving us all nuts. Maybe it was time to find a friend for Gracie. And maybe a new dog would ease the hurt in my heart.

  Lucy had been my very first dog. We’d had family dogs when I was growing up, but she was the first one I’d picked out and brought home as an adult. How would I find another dog like Lucy? Nick and I adopted her from a shelter when our oldest son Brady was a toddler. I can’t even remember what made us decide to get a dog. Maybe we were practicing for adding another child (we had Addie a year after we adopted Lucy). Brady wasn’t with us when we went to the shelter. I think visiting the shelters may have actually been a date. (We’re exciting like that.)

  We walked up the cement aisle and looked through the metal fences at all the dogs. One dog caught my eye—a small hound cowering in the back of her kennel. A note on her kennel said that she was already adopted. My heart sank, and we moved along visiting with the other dogs. We passed a few older dogs, big dogs with matted coats and life-weary eyes. There were dogs that lunged at the fence as we passed, running frantically up and down their pens. Several obese tiny dogs huddled together on a blanket. This was before the era of pit bulls dominating the shelters as they do these days.

  Nick liked a couple lab-like dogs, but they seemed a bit too enthusiastic to my mind. I knew I’d be the one spending the most time with this dog we brought home. I was working full-time then, but had a flexible job that allowed me to work from home on the day
s we didn’t have daycare for Brady. I pictured these big dogs knocking over Brady and clearing the coffee table with their tails. We lived in a 1,100-square-foot house. We had no room for a seventy-five-pound dog.

  “What do you think?” asked Nick.

  I shook my head. “I really like that hound. I wish she wasn’t adopted already.”

  We walked back to look at the hound again, and I put my hand against the fence. She thumped her tail and ducked her head. Then she slowly crept toward me. She was six months old and about thirty-five pounds. She licked my hand and I looked in those liquid brown eyes. I wanted her.

  Nick decided to go ask about her. That’s something I’ve always loved and hated about my husband—he’s never afraid to ask, and he doesn’t necessarily take no for an answer. It’s probably the reason we’re married. I was involved with someone else when we met. In fact, my heart was set on this other man; I was just waiting for him to make a real commitment. This didn’t stop Nick from pursuing me. Three months later we were dating and four months after that he asked me to marry him. The man is determined and persistent and maybe a tad bit impatient.

  He returned with an application for us to fill out. He said that the person who was supposed to adopt the dog had only one more day to show up. If he didn’t, we could adopt her. And, the shelter worker told Nick, if she wasn’t adopted tomorrow, the dog’s time would be up. So we filled out the application and waited, and the next day we drove back to the shelter and brought Lucy home. I remember looking at the enormous incinerator on the far side of the parking lot as we walked in. I found it hard to believe that they would put a puppy as sweet and beautiful as Lucy in it if we hadn’t come back today. Nick said, “They just say that to pressure you,” but I had my doubts. I mean, there was the incinerator. It wasn’t pretend—they used it for something.