Foster Pups

Oso came to us on April 25, 2007.  She was the smallest puppy I've ever seen.... maybe a pound total weight.  The pound wanted to say that she was five weeks old ... but I don't know what they were smoking when they came up with that.  She was probably more like three weeks old.  She barely had teeth, couldn't eat dry food - didn't even know what to do with dry food.  All she did was shake and make sucking noises, and cry - lots of crying.  The poor girl could barely walk, stumbling around the house, mostly sleeping in a laundry basket with blankets in the bottom.  I remember that she would wake up after sleeping for hours and hours and pee, and the spot of pee would be the size of a quarter.  Even her pee was tiny.  :)  She couldn't eat dry food at all, and really couldn't eat wet food either.  She could lap up the gravy around the wet food, but not actually eat it.  I went out and got puppy formula for her and bottle fed her for a week or so, adding in more mix as we went to turn it into greul.  Eventually she was doing okay on the greul but not putting on weight.  So I bought some chicken gravy and started mixing it with can food, using lots of gravy so she could lap it up.  Chicken gravy is mostly just chicken stock, so I figured it couldn't be all bad for her, plus it was calories - and at that point all I cared about was getting some calories in her belly.  Finally she started to perk up after weeks of this.  She even grew her teeth in and started eating dry food. 

The way that puppy ran was the funnies thing ever... She hopped, like a rabbit.  It was hilarious to watch.  For weeks I sat here thinking that there might be something wrong with her, because she was so calm, so quiet - so not a puppy... She was oh so sweet and gentle.  We ended up naming her Oso, like Oh-So, because Oso is Italian for Bear, plus it fit because we were constantly saying that she was Oh-So this and Oh-So that.  We miss her very much these days...

A lady named Judy called here to see about adopting her, and after talking for a long time and really getting to know them, we chose them to adopt Oso.  Now she lives in St. Peters with a great loving family and is doing Oh-So-Wonderfully!

Just for background information, I wanted to add one post about our family dogs, Sadi and Mocha.  These are not foster puppies, but just our regular family dogs who have lived here all their lives, and will live here forever.  I'm not the only foster Mom in the house, Mocha is a foster mom too, and Sadi is a foster-sister.  They do really well with the fostering, and I couldn't do it without them.

Mocha is a mix of some sort .... Some people call her a Border Collie Mix, some call her a Shepard Mix, and she has the coloring of a Rottweiler, but much longer hair and she's not as big as a Rottie.  She's the most mild mannered doggie the whole world, and gets along with everyone.  She's ten years old now, and has been with us since she was six weeks old.  We got her from the Humane Society of St. Louis, MO when she was a puppy.  Even as a puppy she was mild mannered, stoic and fairly calm.  I had a one year old little boy back then and she was great with him.  They grew up together.  Nowadays, she's a dog that refuses to work for food - will not fetch, doesn't enjoy walks, and really acts very cat like in her demeanor.  She wants attention constantly, but is not about to stoop to the level of doing some sort of trick in order to get your attention.  That sort of thing is just above her.  She's very prissy, very frilly and girly.  Doesn't like to get wet, or dirty - ever, and is quite picky about treats, table scraps, and everything and anything else.  Still though, she's the sweetest temperment.  Through my description she sounds kind of mean, but she is SO far from it.  She's just .... well, moody.  Last year she had a very large lump on her side that we had surgically removed, and we're very hopeful that it wasn't a malignant tumor.  It was a tumor of some osrt, but we didn't want to know what kind... because I can't imagine putting her through chemotherapy, so instead we had the tumor removed and now she's fully recovered and very happy again.  She's very motherly with the foster puppies that come through here too.  She cuddles with them when it's nap time, and checks on them when they whine or cry.  But - she does NOT play.  When the pups are being rambunvious and crazy, Mocha finds somewhere else to hang up and gets the heck away from them.  She's not about to chase them or rough-house in any way.  She tells them very clearly that she's not into that and then she goes away.... but come nap time, she's right there with them making sure they are warm, and safe goes right inot Mommy-mode.  She's a great dog, and we can't imagine life without her.  She has become a huge part of our hearts and our family.  We love her very much.

Then there's Sadi.... our four year old Black Lab Mix.  We got her from the Animal Protecive Association in St. Louis when she was eight weeks old.  I've taken in a lot of puppies in my lifetime, and I thought that I knew puppies - every kind, every age, and I could handle anything ... and then came Sadi.  I thought that puppy would be the death of me.  I later found out that lab puppies are all pretty insane, and that they stay puppies for a very long time.  For two years that puppy was a complete terror.  She almost destroyed everything in my entire home.  She redecorated our bathroom, removed some drywall in the hallway, ate a couch, left me completely shoe-less... among many other things.  She was a fun one that's for sure, and honestly - still is.  By the time we'd gotten Sadi, I'd quit work and way a stay home Mom, so Sadi grew very used to the fact that I was ALWAYS home.  This created a problem when it came time for me to even walk to the end of the driveway to put the kids on the school bus, or get the mail.  Sadi would back up as far as possible from our front bay window, run as fast as she could towards it, and throw herself against the window, over and over again whenever I was out front and she wasn't with me.  I'm still surprised that she never broke that window.  Lord knows she tried!  I've had a lot of dogs that I've loved, but I've never been as close to a dog as I am with Sadi.  She's next to me on the couch 24-7, sleeps with me, thinks that she's my husband.  We're very attached to each other.  She's still very much a puppy, and very much a Lab.  She'll retrieve anything, anytime, and she loves - LOVES - to swim.  We have a baby pool in the back yard just for her, and for any puppies that are interested in swimming.  Sadi loves to lie in the pool, belly up and roll around to get wet.  Most of us she loves us though - kids included, and she's the best dog ever.  I keep saying that she better be the first dog ever to live fifty years because I don't know what I'll ever do if she has to leave me.  We love her very much.

So here's my first entry - If you read my profile you already know that I'm a foster mom for puppies that need rescue.  I work with a group called BARC here in the St. Louis Area. 

(If you happen to want to know more about BARC, here's the link - http://www.barcstl.org/ )

Anyway, we rescue from the St. Louis City pound, and we just grab whatever little guys we can as often as we can.  I just started officially doing this back in March.  A friend of a friend had a Pit Bull that they claimed they just couldn't house train.  I offered to take the puppy in for a week and house train her, considering it comes easy to me for some reason.  Her name was Daisy and she was about eight weeks old back then.  She looked just like Petey from the Little Rascals show.  She was black and white colored, with a big black ring around one eye.  She was a crazy little one... so fast, and so mischevious, but house trained in a matter of days, and for the most part fairly well behaved.  She had a bit of a food agression issue, but it took us all of a day to work that out and she became really well adjusted in no time.  She went back to her owner for all of two days before they decided that they really didn't want to keep her.  I took her back in and found her a home with the help of a rescue group, and thus began my foster care for puppies program. 

I've always taken in puppies that people decide they don't want.  My dogs, Sadi and Mocha, seem to adjust a bit better to puppies than they do grown dogs, so we try to stick to the youngsters.  I sent some emails around to rescue groups asking about whether or not it would be odd for me to say that I want to provide foster care, but ONLY for puppies... and EVERY rescue group in the state replied, or called me with a resounding NO! It would not be odd to ask that, and please, please take some puppies from us!  Apparently there are a lot of foster homes out there that specifically request to NOT have puppies.  It makes sense when you think about it ... puppies are high maintenance, and they need house breaking, they chew, they are a bit destructive, they get sick, puppy teeth are really sharp, they eat your shoes .... Y'know - they're PUPPIES! 

I happen to be a stay at home Mom of two boys, ages nine and eleven, and my kids don't need my constant attention anymore.  Because of my spoiled rotten living situation, and the massive amount of free time I have on my hands, I don't have any problem handling high maintenance puppies.  Actually, I LOVE it!  I just adore having puppies around the house, even with the chewing, biting, peeing, and pooping.... I still love it.  They're my babies, and I wish I could keep every one of them that come through here.  I just couldn't handle having five or six full grown dogs running around, so it works out that I get them as pups, get them healthy, spayed/neutered, and then adopted out to good loving, forever homes.  And as soon as one goes .... another pup worms it's way into my house and heart and we start all over again!

So that's my story, and some of an explanation as to what I do and why I do it.  All puppies that are ever posted here will be available at some point on Petfinder.com for adoption.  Plus, if anyone is ever interested in one of the puppies that are posted, feel free to email me at awintrode@gmail.com.  I'd be happy to answer any questions that anyone has.  I'll be adding more entries often.  Check the most recent post to see what puppies are current staying with us.  Thanks for reading, and please come back often!

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