Fostering 101

After fostering for  many years now and having over 100 dogs go through our house, I've learned a lot and sadly much of it I learned the hard way. Note the photo below.

The first litter of pups I ever fostered (Rat Terrier/Mini Schnauzer mixes). Lesson learned: never leave toilet paper within reach of puppies. Second lesson learned: Never again volunteer to foster a litter of puppies

Recently, I've seen some stuff on FB from new foster parents that made me bite my tongue and I've seen some stuff from not so new foster parents that honestly startled me as well. I needed a spot where I could share some basics and hopefully save others (and their foster dogs) some headaches and heartaches. So I created a blog called Fostering 101. No posts up yet but I'll be posting tomorrow, first thing.

Some of it will be just basic skills stuff - tips on house training, the correct way to socialize a dog, dog to dog introductions.... And I know that occasionally there will be a rant thrown in so humor me on that (the term "foster failure" comes to mind). Some will be opinions, based on my experiences and some will be basic animal behavior stuff backed by science. Hopefully people will be able to use the information and maybe even get some dialog going on "best practices" when it comes to fostering.

Tilly was our 10th foster dog and was the first extremely under-socialized dog I worked with. It was a difficult journey but we taught each other a lot. 

I'll do my best to get at least one Fostering 101 post written each week. With work, my fostering duties, my regional coordinator duties for New Rattitude, and family it seems the blog is the first thing to get forgotten so we'll see how I do. Stay tuned...