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Oct. 2nd, 2008 12:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stonebenderMove along, move along .
If all goes well tonight there will be the patter of little feet (actually little paws). We have been looking for another dog the last couple of weeks. It's difficult because as I tried to figure out what would be best for us, I fall little in love with each of the puppies/dogs. We have been looking for a relatively young dog. Mainly because we just couldn't contemplate having to go through what we are going through with Gilly's death in the near future. We want to wait a long time before we have to go through that again. We of course understand that the older dogs are harder to place and intellectually I would love to help out a five or six-year-old dog, but it would be too hard.
We have been looking online at several shelters and rescue organizations. In some ways, getting a dog is almost as hard as adopting a child (and I do not mean to make light of parents looking to adopt a child). Lots and lots of questionnaires to fill out. There have even been requests for home visits to make sure we will be good doggy parents. Anyway, along with looking on the web we have actually visited a few shelters or rescue organizations to see what they had. We have visited the Oakland animal shelter most often. We have each found our favorite dog at least a couple of times each. I'm sure we will be talking about the black and tan hound named Annie, Bobbie Sue the Husky cross, the Boston Terrier cross named PJ, the cattle dog cross Kelsey, the roly-poly Rottweiler, Adina the border collie Doberman cross and one of my faves a beautiful black shepherd whose name I never got.
For one reason or another each of these dogs didn't quite work out. Some got adopted before we had come to a decision on adopting it. Others were more than we could handle we were afraid. along with all these other dogs we discovered that the Oakland Animal Shelter has received a red Doberman Pinscher who was pregnant when she arrived and subsequently had four little puppies. Three red like their mother and a black and tan. They all have natural ears and tails (we will have to get used to the tails, Gilly had hers docked before we met her). Thee puppies all have these thin long tails.
At first we were told that the dogs were going to Northern California Doberman rescue organization and that we would have to contact them on the possibility of getting one of the puppies. It turned out that the puppies all have ringworm. so the Doberman rescue had asked the Oakland shelter to keep the mother and pups until after the ringworm had been treated. They felt that the puppies needed to be isolated from the other dogs and they didn't have facilities for that. (According to our research, ringworm isn't particularly catchy if one has a fully functioning immune system. That's why the puppies have it. Now it is possible for us to catch it but not very likely.) An Oakland shelter staff member took our contact information and said she would forward it to the Doberman rescue folks and tell them a our interest and opting one of the puppies. There wasn't much else to do so we left.
We dropped by again a week later (two weeks?) to see how the puppies were doing and see if they had been transferred to Doberman rescue. They were still in Oakland and another staff person showed us the puppies again. After a little bit of conversation, this staff person said that the puppies may just be given out from the shelter. They thought the mother would need to go to the rescue organization because she had some behavior issues that they may be able to treat. We asked when the puppies would be available and she asked us if we would be willing to foster one of the them. I immediately said yesloracs immediately said no. I made sure that she knew I was fine with not fostering the pup. I had just thought she had wanted the puppy. I wanted to make sure it was mostly her decision because, let's face it, she would be doing the lion's share of the work with the puppy until the dog had learned a few things so that I could handle her some.
The staff member gave our contact information to an animal placement coordinator. The coordinator contacted us and now we will be fostering a Doberman.Fostering a puppy apparently means we pick up the tab for everything for this pup. Once the ringworm is treated and she has been fixed. She becomes ours officially. I am very nervous and very excited. I've never really had a puppy most of my dogs were rescue dogs or service dogs and therefore at least a year or two old. if we screw this puppy up we will have no one to blame but ourselves.
Here we go!
If all goes well tonight there will be the patter of little feet (actually little paws). We have been looking for another dog the last couple of weeks. It's difficult because as I tried to figure out what would be best for us, I fall little in love with each of the puppies/dogs. We have been looking for a relatively young dog. Mainly because we just couldn't contemplate having to go through what we are going through with Gilly's death in the near future. We want to wait a long time before we have to go through that again. We of course understand that the older dogs are harder to place and intellectually I would love to help out a five or six-year-old dog, but it would be too hard.
We have been looking online at several shelters and rescue organizations. In some ways, getting a dog is almost as hard as adopting a child (and I do not mean to make light of parents looking to adopt a child). Lots and lots of questionnaires to fill out. There have even been requests for home visits to make sure we will be good doggy parents. Anyway, along with looking on the web we have actually visited a few shelters or rescue organizations to see what they had. We have visited the Oakland animal shelter most often. We have each found our favorite dog at least a couple of times each. I'm sure we will be talking about the black and tan hound named Annie, Bobbie Sue the Husky cross, the Boston Terrier cross named PJ, the cattle dog cross Kelsey, the roly-poly Rottweiler, Adina the border collie Doberman cross and one of my faves a beautiful black shepherd whose name I never got.
For one reason or another each of these dogs didn't quite work out. Some got adopted before we had come to a decision on adopting it. Others were more than we could handle we were afraid. along with all these other dogs we discovered that the Oakland Animal Shelter has received a red Doberman Pinscher who was pregnant when she arrived and subsequently had four little puppies. Three red like their mother and a black and tan. They all have natural ears and tails (we will have to get used to the tails, Gilly had hers docked before we met her). Thee puppies all have these thin long tails.
At first we were told that the dogs were going to Northern California Doberman rescue organization and that we would have to contact them on the possibility of getting one of the puppies. It turned out that the puppies all have ringworm. so the Doberman rescue had asked the Oakland shelter to keep the mother and pups until after the ringworm had been treated. They felt that the puppies needed to be isolated from the other dogs and they didn't have facilities for that. (According to our research, ringworm isn't particularly catchy if one has a fully functioning immune system. That's why the puppies have it. Now it is possible for us to catch it but not very likely.) An Oakland shelter staff member took our contact information and said she would forward it to the Doberman rescue folks and tell them a our interest and opting one of the puppies. There wasn't much else to do so we left.
We dropped by again a week later (two weeks?) to see how the puppies were doing and see if they had been transferred to Doberman rescue. They were still in Oakland and another staff person showed us the puppies again. After a little bit of conversation, this staff person said that the puppies may just be given out from the shelter. They thought the mother would need to go to the rescue organization because she had some behavior issues that they may be able to treat. We asked when the puppies would be available and she asked us if we would be willing to foster one of the them. I immediately said yes
loracs immediately said no. I made sure that she knew I was fine with not fostering the pup. I had just thought she had wanted the puppy. I wanted to make sure it was mostly her decision because, let's face it, she would be doing the lion's share of the work with the puppy until the dog had learned a few things so that I could handle her some.The staff member gave our contact information to an animal placement coordinator. The coordinator contacted us and now we will be fostering a Doberman.Fostering a puppy apparently means we pick up the tab for everything for this pup. Once the ringworm is treated and she has been fixed. She becomes ours officially. I am very nervous and very excited. I've never really had a puppy most of my dogs were rescue dogs or service dogs and therefore at least a year or two old. if we screw this puppy up we will have no one to blame but ourselves.
Here we go!
