Maria’s Story

It all started with Pup Pup.

In summer 2019, my son Robert was involved in a week-long community service project with his youth group, providing home repairs to a family in need in a rural part of our North Carolina county. Running loose on the property was a young staffie mix called Pup Pup.

Pup Pup, getting all the love and belly rubs from Robert and his friends.

Robert and his friends showered Pup Pup with all the love and attention she craved as a neglected, outside dog. When the kids first met Pup Pup, she was covered in ticks (which they removed) and, lacking access to fresh water, she drank from the septic tank.

Pup Pup was the product of backyard breeding. She was the last of her litter, and her owner didn’t want her anymore. Robert was distressed about Pup Pup’s plight and asked if we could foster her and find her a loving home.

As much as I wanted to help Pup Pup (and reassure Robert), I had concerns about bringing an unknown, unvetted dog into our home. And I had no idea how Coco (our female Jack Russell/beagle mix) would react to Pup Pup.

I proposed fostering Pup Pup IF we could do it via a rescue group, but I had no clue how to make that happen. I contacted a friend who fosters for Saving Grace, a local rescue, and she referred me to Wake County Animal Center (WCAC) and RUFF, a then-rescue partner of WCAC. Shortly thereafter, I had an informative chat with WCAC’s foster coordinator Joanne who is a foster caregiver herself. (Read Joanne’s foster story).

Joanne explained how WCAC and its rescue partners worked together, and how we couldn’t just “sign up” to foster Pup Pup. There was an application process and review, as well as an orientation training we would need to attend. And that made sense. But it didn’t help Pup Pup!

The best option for Pup Pup, according to Joanne, was to request a wellness check from Animal Control (AC). If Pup Pup was not vaccinated against rabies (doubtful), that might coerce the owner to surrender Pup Pup in the field to AC. And, in the end, that’s what happened. At the shelter, Pup Pup was quickly pulled into a foster home and shortly thereafter found her forever family!

At the shelter, Pup Pup was a happy girl.

The experience with Pup Pup informed my family’s decision to apply to become a foster family. After considering our volunteer options, we felt that WCAC had a greater need for foster homes than our local rescue organizations, so we chose to foster with them.

In September 2019, we were approved to foster for WCAC. But as I considered the reality of bringing an unknown dog into our home, I hesitated, feeling overwhelmed by the logistics of working full-time and how all of “that” would work.

Coco factored heavily into my hesitation. She was a bit of an enigma. She had attacked our daughter’s female chihuahua (who no longer lived with us) multiple times, but on walks she seemed happy to engage young males who were larger than her.

When Covid happened and I was able to work from home full-time, I told Robert and my husband, Mark, the time had come to see if we could handle fostering. In hindsight, our house is well-designed for dog fostering. It’s large with more than the average number of doors. So, if we needed to isolate one dog from another, the infrastructure already existed.

Dutch was an easygoing staffie mix who had been tied to a railing outside of the shelter after hours, in the rain. We did a meet-n-greet with Coco and, under Joanne’s supervision, it went well so Dutch became our first foster.

Coco seemed to like Dutch, although as I have learned more about dog behavior and body language, she tried to dominate him during “play”—no small task for a 25-lb. dog chasing a staffie almost three times her size!

After Dutch found his forever family, we pulled Max and Dory (male/female siblings) with the caveat that another foster would take Dory (the female). That happened eventually, but not before Coco snapped at Dory multiple times. Coco was cool with Max, though, and his successor, Trace.

Trace (now “Knight”) was only with us for three weeks. He got into all kinds of mischief, and systematically searched for break-out weaknesses in our backyard fence, like the velociraptors in “Jurassic Park”!

When we met Tigger, he had been adopted and returned twice, and was labeled with “separation anxiety.” Coco’s initial meeting with Tigger went really well so, as we had with our previous fosters, we allowed them to interact with each other in the house, as long as humans were present to supervise.

We rename all of our fosters. Tigger’s brindle coat inspired his name.

All was good until one afternoon when everyone was together in the home office. Robert was snuggling Tigger with Coco nearby when, seemingly without warning, she clamped down on Tigger’s snout like a little crocodile and would not let go. As Tigger yowled, I recalled Joanne’s tips about how to break up a dog fight. I took hold of Coco from behind and pushed her toward Tigger, telling Robert to do the same. Coco loosened her grip enough for me to pry her off of poor Tigger, leaving behind a bloody puncture wound.

We naively thought this incident was a one-off, but that night Coco tried to attack Tigger again. This time, Robert was quicker and managed to scoop Coco up and away from our terrified foster pup.

It was painfully clear that Coco (and we) needed professional help. Our vet offered a short list of trainer recommendations, and we retained the company that had the earliest availability.

Since then, I have become fascinated by how the doggie brain works. It’s not rocket science. Dogs tell us everything we need to know. It’s on us humans to learn how to “listen.” In Coco’s case, we learned that her reactivity was due to fear and stress (poor baby!). We also discovered that Tigger’s barking was a temper tantrum rather than actual separation anxiety.

The training package we purchased included training for Coco, as well as current and future fosters, for Coco’s lifetime. So, both Tigger and our next foster, Copper, reaped the benefits of my newly gained knowledge.

A discarded hunting dog, Copper came into the shelter with an embedded-collar wound. We bonded quickly as I gently applied medicated gel to the open gash. He responded to my quiet praise—”such a brave boy!”—by nuzzling my face with his broad snout and I was in love. Again.

Copper was a blank slate with regard to training and one of my proudest accomplishments was teaching him to sit! Initially, he was terrified of car rides, but soon learned that, wherever we were headed, he would get a treat, have fun, or both!

Copper used to sleep on a red beanbag chair that I would fluff every night for the next day. After he was adopted, I couldn’t bring myself to fluff that thing (and lose the imprint of his body) for two weeks. But he’s living his bestest life!

A few months after Copper’s adoption, his family wanted to find him a buddy and adopt another shelter dog—because my adopters rock! They reached out to me and I queried the shelter’s foster group for suggestions. A dog named Alfie was put forward and, after connecting Alfie’s foster with Copper’s family, I got out of the middle.

A few weeks after Alfie and Copper became brothers, the boys were getting into fights with Alfie as the aggressor. The mom’s stress in trying to find a solution without returning either dog to the shelter was palpable in her texts and emails, and I shared her concern. They needed professional assistance, so I connected them with our group class trainer, Amanda. Through her guidance and instruction, Alfie and Copper have been able to remain with this amazing family and achieve peaceful coexistence.

Learning how to train dogs was empowering. Every walk, every interaction was a training opportunity. The more I learned about dogs and their behavior, the more I wanted to know. I had not realized how stressed and helpless I’d felt, being unable to understand or address Coco’s reactivity, but with our trainer as a resource, my confidence grew, maybe a bit too much. Enter, Clifford.

In February 2022, Clifford was out of time. He had come into the shelter twice as a stray: the first time, his owner reclaimed him (after several months), but not the second time. He was cleared for adoption, but during the second go-round he became overly humpy and mouthy. For safety reasons, he was deemed “foster/rescue,” but no one was stepping up, so on his last day, I brought him home.

Clifford’s previous humans had failed him. He had no impulse control and zero leash skills. He also flinched when he saw a raised hand. Despite that, he LOVED people and being loved, and he had amassed a loyal fan base among the shelter’s staff and volunteers.

Robert and Clifford bonded immediately.

Over the next seven months, Clifford thrived in our home, loving being loved, crushing group class, and endearing himself to us with his mischievous personality. He adored Robert and was wary of Coco (who managed to ambush him a couple of times). And he won over Amanda, who said she’d adopt him in a heartbeat, if only her boy Sampson would tolerate another male in their pack.

However, through a series of missteps with Mark—as well as some training errors—it became unsafe for my husband to handle Clifford alone. Since I had returned to work on a hybrid schedule and Robert had moved out, the situation was unsustainable and we made the agonizing decision to return Clifford to the shelter at the end of September 2022.

On his last day at my home, Amanda came to say goodbye and we took lots of pictures, including this one. It’s one of my faves.

Due to his behavior with Mark (he had bitten and lunged at him; no broken skin), Clifford was labeled “rescue only” and had less than a week to find placement, or be euthanized.

Given the crisis that shelters and rescues are in, especially here in North Carolina, Clifford’s outcome was bleak. We were all devastated and I felt I was just one more human who had failed him. As the days ticked by, I talked to Joanne about the possibility of being present and holding Clifford as he was put down.

Meanwhile, I urgently advocated and networked with shelter staff and volunteers, eventually connecting with JP, a volunteer who worked with a burgeoning rescue, based in South Carolina. Clifford was almost out of time when she found a spot for him, thereby saving his life. On the day he would depart for SC, I went to the shelter to take Clifford for one last walk and wish him “happy tails.”

Clifford’s SC destination was the rescue’s trainer who had multiple, state-of-the-art, climate-controlled kennels on his property. Given Clifford’s craving for human interaction, it wasn’t ideal, but he was alive. The rescue promoted dogs nationally to help them find homes and I hoped he would find his forever family in a northern state, leaving his southern past behind.

A month later, Clifford “graduated” and was made available for adoption. But shortly thereafter, due to a series of unfortunate events (i.e., zoning code violations), Clifford and several other dogs at the trainer’s facility had to be moved. Quickly.

At around the same time, JP founded her own rescue with several partners, and due to the abrupt need for / lack of space, Clifford was among more than 20 dogs being housed outdoors at the home of the new rescue’s transport driver. My heart sank at this news. If Clifford was not already deteriorating from lack of human contact, I feared this change in setting would send him into a downward spiral. But there was no place else for him to go.

During the next few months, Clifford’s fate weighed heavily on my mind and heart. As he languished in outdoor boarding, I worried about him constantly, especially during storms, which I knew terrified him. JP was avidly promoting Clifford to find him a new home. I helped her screen several applicants, but none were the right fit.

My requests for updates about Clifford yielded scarce, often contradictory reports. One of the adults caring for Clifford supposedly spent extra time with him and referred to him as his buddy. But then I heard that Clifford was cage-fighting with the female dog being housed in the pen next to his. “Why can’t they put plywood between them so they can’t see each other??!” I asked in frustration.

Fast-forward to March 2023. JP called down to SC to get the latest Clifford news and was reluctantly informed that he was losing weight and had been vomiting. “Get him to the vet!” she commanded. The only thing the vet could diagnose was mild anemia, but JP and I agreed it was past time for Clifford to get out of that environment.

Soon, JP found a temporary spot for Clifford in her expanding network of Raleigh-area foster homes. Concurrently, she spoke to prospective adopters who sounded promising. After a long phone chat with them, I agreed. It was a young couple who lived in the NC mountains. Unfortunately, due to a family commitment, they could not bring Clifford home for several weeks so, after his temporary foster placement ended, we arranged to board him at Dog Gone Happy, a doggie daycare/boarding facility I had recently found.

As Robert and I waited to transport Clifford from his temporary foster to DGH, we wondered if he would remember us. During the past six months, he had endured so much and met so many new people.

Back in Raleigh, before Clifford entered temporary boarding, we shared a hug. But I would see him several more times before he went HOME.

We were angrily shocked to see how skinny our sweet boy was as we approached his crate in the back of the foster’s truck. He wagged his tail in uncertain greeting, as I imagined he’d done many times with the strangers he’d encountered since he’d left us. But when our scent registered on him—BOOM. That whippy tail went into overdrive in an explosion of joyful recognition.

During the next three weeks, Clifford gained a whole new group of fans at DGH. He got lots of extra love and snuggles, and plenty of in-between-meal treats, which helped him regain some of the 20 lbs. he had lost in SC. The weekend manager adored him and let Clifford stay in her overnight room as well!

A week into his boarding stay, Clifford met his prospective adopters. Although they had initially wanted a foster-to-adopt scenario, during that meeting they decided he was the dog they’d been searching for. And, on April 15, 2023, Clifford went HOME.

Clifford and his mom.

No matter how long—or short— a time I am part of a dog’s journey, I become invested in its well-being and happy ending. Post-adoption, I consider my adopters family and leave the door wide open to support them as needed. Depending on the dog, some adopters reach out more than others.

About six months after his adoption, Clifford’s family took him to the beach on what was likely his first-ever vacation. I received heartwarming photos and videos of him frolicking in the surf and relaxing by the pool. And then a tearful phone call from his mom to report Clifford was in the ICU at NC State University’s veterinary hospital. He was in kidney failure and needed dialysis. The prognosis was 50/50 but his family decided to move forward with treatment, despite the five-figure price tag. Clifford’s eventual diagnosis was babesia vulpes, a rare disorder that may have been caused by the poor conditions he was subjected to in SC. But Cliffy (as he’s now called) is a fighter. He recently tested negative for babesia vulpes and is thriving in the devoted, loving care of his family. Follow Clifford on Instagram

Fostering dogs has been stressful and fulfilling, heartbreaking and joyful. And it has opened my eyes to the cruelty of my own species. We do not deserve dogs, but I am thankful for the ones who have allowed me to love and care for them. These sentient beings possess a resilience and capacity for unconditional love and forgiveness that humbles me. As long as I’m able, I will do what I can to help as many as I can to live the lives they deserve.

We’ve had our current foster, Jasper, for 18 months and counting. There’s talk within the family of adopting him, but I’m trying to resist. Stay tuned!

Maria fosters with the Wake County Animal Center in North Carolina. If you’re interested in fostering, contact WCAC directly.

Follow Maria’s foster journey on YouTube and Instagram!

All images in this story are provided by the foster.

This story is part of a larger project The Highs & Lows of Fostering Animals where fosters share their stories in their own words.