fostering – Treehouse Writers

Previous posts have been about fostering dogs. This one is too. Just not in the same way.

My friend B. was one of the first people to welcome me to the neighborhood clique of dog-people, the two of us bonding over dog names (her little pup is Minnie, my gangly beast is Maxi).

Minnie is a recent adoption. Her previous dog died recently, at an advanced age, and she waited a while before getting another. They’d only been together a few months when Minnie started acting off. They ran tests, and everything came back clear…. until this month it didn’t.

Minnie has lymphoma.

We walk along the curving path through the park, as she tells me the diagnosis, Max and Minnie trotting just ahead of us. They’ve put Minnie on prednisone, and it’s drastically improved her mood and behavior. She’s not in pain any more. But it’s only buying time. Continue reading “A Different Kind of Fostering”…

I Can Stop Any Time… I just Don’t Want To. Mostly.

by Laura Anne Gilman

February 26, 2021February 26, 2021

My last post, I talked about fostering a puppy (who has since gone on to his furever home, huzzah!). And I thought, “okay, I’m going to take a break from all that, for a while.”

And then an email landed from the other shelter I volunteer with, and without hesitation I said, “I can take Bella.”

Bella is a six-year-old Pomeranian mix, a delicate little lady with the spine of a dragon (when a friend’s Great Dane pup got too close, she opened her little mouth and showed her little teeth, and told him to get fucked. He backed down.). We call her the cat-dog, because all she really wants is to cuddle, ideally and preferably in my lap, but she is perfectly happy to trot alongside Max for nearly an hour on our walks.

(and then she demands to be carried, like the princess she is).

It hasn’t been all snuggles and walks, though. Her first few days, her tummy was stress-upset, and I spent a lot of time washing shit out of her fur. Her housebreaking broke (also due to stress) and I spent a lot of time cleaning carpets. And recleaning carpets. And throwing out soiled pee pads (and keeping Max from eating the fresh ones). Sweet Bella is demanding of my time, to the point where Max started to get cranky about it. And god help you when you tried to crate her at night! Her place was on the bed with you, thank you very much.

(Once she regained her house training, she got to sleep on the bed, yes).

And then she had to have dental surgery, and I spent four days trying to convince her that yes, she did need to take all her meds…. Trying to get a tiny dog to swallow a pill is not like pilling a larger dog. Their mouths are so tiny and you feel guilty AF for even trying.

But she’s still the sweetest bundle of fierce fluff, and I love her dearly.

I said that in conversation recently, and got another round of the usual, “I don’t know how you can bear to foster, and then let them go. I’d end up adopting all of them.”

As I said to that friend: no, you really wouldn’t. And no, we’re not saints for doing this. I joke that having a third animal in the house for a short period of time is how I remind myself that one dog and one cat is the perfect balance for this household. More than that, and chaos is set loose. Chaos, and exhaustion. But more than that, the truth is that with animals, as with people, loving someone doesn’t always mean you want to keep them.

As you read this, I’m bringing her back to the shelter to meet with prospective adopters. I have all my fingers and toes crossed that they will be a perfect match, and Bella will be going to her furever home, to spend the rest of her life loved and comforted and allowed to sleep on the bed.

And then I’m going to take a break from fostering for a while.

And this time I mean it!

EtA: Bella did in fact charm her potential humans, and their resident dog, and went home with them this evening. <3.

The 13th Month of 2020

by Laura Anne Gilman

January 29, 2021January 28, 2021

This month has been a hell of a year. It would take me all of my space for this post to recount everything that has happened in the past 29 days, and honestly there’s no need, you were there too.

And you know what? I’m taking it personally. I started off the year thinking that this year I would hit all of my deadlines, got everything in early not just on time, got seven hours of sleep every night, and actually made dinner regularly. Oh, and I was also going to have enough time to make myself lunch ahead of time. Raise your hand if you think that lasted more than a week.

I see none of you took that sucker bet.

There’s been a thought in the back of my head, that has moved to the front of my head this week. How long do we give ourselves a free pass, by saying, “well it’s 2020.” Or, the 13th month of 2020. At what point do we know, it’s over, everyone has to get back to being competent again?

OK, whatever level of competence we had before *waves hands* all this started.

The answer is, depressingly, we’re not going to know. Not until we look backward and say, “oh yeah, around X, that’s when things started to get better.” And even then, we’re not going to suddenly discover that our focus has come back, our energy returned, our depressions lifted.

Trauma is never that goddamned considerate, or communicative.

So when I got the call from one of the shelters I volunteer with, asking if I’d be able to take in a six-week-old puppy, part of a litter that had been pulled from a bad situation and needed a fast home, I said, yes. Because hey, if you’re already drowning, why not dive?

This, like so many of my decisions in the past 13 months, was both horrible, and brilliant. Horrible, because six-week-old puppies need constant attention, and by that I mean, you’re up every hour and half, all night, to take them out and encourage them to pee and poo, hopefully but not always on the pad provided for that action. And if not, you clean it up, put them back in their kennel, and try to get 85 minutes of sleep before the next round. And then you do that all day, too, only without the sleep

Brilliant, because there is nothing like holding a small bundle of fur and heartbeat, and knowin a dog and a small puppy, playing tug with a length of red rope g that you are its entire world.

(okay, me, and Max. Max turned out to be a pawsome big foster-sister.)

But also brilliant, because when I handed him off at the end of his fostering – and took a two hour nap – I suddenly realized that I had so much more energy and time to accomplish things than I’d had just a week before! Suddenly, everything was still painful, but manageable.

Of course it’s a mirage. Shhhhh. Don’t let my brain know.

Just Let Me Have a Nap, then I Can Conquer the World. Or at Least Potty Training.

by Laura Anne Gilman

August 28, 2020August 27, 2020

2020 is an ongoing trash fire. That’s just a fact. It’s easy to get bogged down in it, to decide there’s no damn use, to just…sink under the weight of it all. Like most people, I’m barely getting through the day. Taking on more responsibility seemed crazy.

But I’d been thinking for a while about getting a dog. And when the older of my two cats passed this spring, and I moved into my own place, it seemed like maybe now was the time?

So I started looking at shelters, putting in applications for dogs who matched what I wanted: a young adult, mid-sized and solidly built, who was cat-friendly. Each time, I lost out because there is a scarcity of cat-friendly pups available after the great Lockdown Pup Adoption Frenzy. So, meh, I figured it would take a while.

Then one of the shelters I’d applied to reached out and asked me if I’d be interested in fostering, since they knew I did that for Homeward Pet. And I said, sure, why not? And they said, “we have 8-week-old puppies.” And I said, “sure, why not?” Because I’m an idiot like that.

“They’re 8-week-old Red Heelers,” they said. And I said, “oh hell.” Because that kind of high-energy, high-attention critter was very much not what I was looking for.

And then I saw the picture of “Minnie” and I may have lost a bit of my heart to her. So I agreed, and the night before my birthday, a transport of twenty-four (yes, 24) pups, including Minnie and her litter mates, arrived, and were parceled out to the waiting fosters.

Dear Reader, I may have known what I was agreeing to, but I had no idea what I was getting into.

Minnie (whom I immediately dubbed the more accurate “Maxi”) is a delightful, adorable, slightly clumsy, and surprisingly thoughtful creature, and I already adore her. But she. Has. To. Pee. Every. Three. Hours.

Which isn’t a problem during the daytime. Having enforced breaks to get up and stretch my legs has been nice, actually. But at night? At night it’s a different story.

And no, I can’t let her pee in her crate. Or, I could, but it’s a bad idea, for many reasons, and I’m not going to do that. So I’m setting my alarm, and getting up at midnight, and again at 3am, and again at 6am….

It’s only been three days, and I’m beyond exhausted. I’ve got a book I need to revise, and a couple of short stories to write, and a day gig, and a regime to protest. And a cat who is being really good about all this but also wants his Human Time.

There are times I just want to sink.

But. In the midst of the trash fire that is 2020, there’s something kind of amazing about having this fresh, fragile, trusting life in your hands. About knowing that you can do it right, and make sure they get a solid start to life, to grow up confident, unafraid, and loving. Healthy, and happy.

And to know that whatever you do is returned to you, immediately. Because when I stagger to the crate at 3am, I’m greeted by a warm, wriggly bundle of sheer joy, who wants only to lick my face – and pee, yeah, but first, there needs to be face licking.

And between kitten snuggles and puppy kisses, I’m able to think not just about surviving, but thriving.

If she’d just stop licking my face so I can work.