Twenty Years of Fostering

Twenty years ago today, Harriett and I began what would turn out to be one of the most rewarding projects we would ever undertake. That’s the day our first foster dog, Millie, a beautiful 4-year old Yellow Labrador, and her six puppies came to live with us.

Harriett became a volunteer adoption counselor at the Champaign County Humane Society (CCHS) in 1984. She came home one Saturday with a story about a pregnant 4-year old female Labrador who had been found running loose at Allerton Park with her mate. They were picked up by a park ranger who kept the male and took the female to CCHS where she gave birth to nine puppies. Probably due to lack of good prenatal care, three of the pups died at CCHS. Back then there was no foster program, no staff veterinarian, and medical care was limited to the basics. Knowing our love for Labradors, Sarah Hurley, the shelter vet tech, asked Harriett if we would be willing to take Millie and the six surviving puppies into our home until they were all old enough and healthy enough to be adopted at the shelter. We accepted the challenge.

Millie’s pups grew up here before returning to the Shelter. Harriett had been carrying a stack of puppy pictures around everywhere she went for weeks, and even without today’s internet-based social media, hundreds of people knew about the litter of Yellow Labs. They were all adopted within a couple of hours. Like most foster families, we adopted our first foster animal and Millie became part of our family and what would become known as our Base Pack.

We didn’t give fostering another thought until almost a year later. Peaches, an Akita/Shepherd mix, was rescued with her 11 newborn puppies from under a porch in a snow storm. The Shelter Manager thought it would be better for the pups to grow up in a home, and once again we took them in. About four months after Peaches and her litter left we took in Buttons, a little terrier mix with three pups. Little did we know that the floodgates were about to open. From that point on, for the next several years, we were never without puppies in our house for more than three weeks in a row.

It wasn’t only puppies that came our way. We had Leona the pig, L.K. the miniature horse, Lyvenia the pot bellied pig, Petula the pigmy goat, Mort the duck, and an assortment of cats and kittens. But mostly we had dogs and puppies.

We’ve had almost every breed of dog that’s common in this area: Labradors, Shepherds, Terriers, Beagles, Schnauzers, Coonhounds, Pit Bulls, Pomeranians, Dobermans, Rottweilers, Collies, Shelties, Bassets, Fox Terriers, Malamutes, Greyhounds, Airedales, Mastiffs, Retrievers, Rhodesian Ridgebacks, Border Collies, Boxers, Cattle Dogs, Spaniels, Dachshunds, Chows, Akitas, Chihuahuas, Huskies, and every mixture thereof. You name it, we’ve had it, usually with a litter.

Overall we’ve had at least 1,139 foster animals at our house: 96 dogs, 842 puppies, 39 cats, 157 kittens, and 5 other species. Of those, 982 were adopted, 152 died, 3 were adopted by us, and 1 was transferred to a petting zoo. Most of them were from the Champaign County Humane Society, but we have also taken foster animals for Douglas County Animal Control and two local veterinarians.

Our experience with Millie and her pups was the start of what would become the CCHS Foster Program. There are now about 39 licensed foster parents working with CCHS. Thousands of dogs and cats have been helped by the program.

Our mentor, Dr. LeRoy Neitzel, once told us that if we kept taking foster animals we would see many diseases. Little did we know we would see an alphabet’s worth. On Tuesday I’ll post about the types of things we’ve encountered over the last 20 years.

Gertie Arrives, Some Pups Move On

Sometimes things happen very quickly for us and our foster dogs. Today the Champaign County Humane Society needed a foster home for Gertie, a three-year-old, 15-pound Shih Tsu/Jack Russell Terrier mix who they believe to be pregnant. Harriett and I are among the few foster homes that will take on a pregnant dog, so to make room for Gertie some changes were made to our foster lineup.

Fellow foster mom, Kim, agreed to take three puppies to ease the load here. Kim took Demo, her clear favorite, as well as Doogie and Rocky. Those three will be living with Kim’s family until Monday when they will return to CCHS for adoption. We kept Cindy, Kira, Mary, and Schipp because we have potential adopters who will be returning to look at three of them. Those four will be going back to CCHS early next week, too. Contact CCHS if you are interested in adopting any one of the seven puppies.

Ace is still here, but he will most likely move to another foster home or return to CCHS for adoption within the next couple of days.

Gertie’s been here for less than a half hour, so I can’t tell you much about her. She has a severe underbite, tarter on her teeth, and she’s had a bad flea infestation in the recent past. She seems nice and I will be spending time with her to bond in preparation for my duties as birth attendant.

I haven’t mentioned it for a while, but CCHS needs more foster homes. If you’ve been following our blog for a while and our work seems interesting to you, please contact Laura Davis at CCHS. Laura is the Volunteer Coordinator.

Foster homes take in single animals for a variety of medical or developmental reasons, puppies, and pregnant moms. The program is very flexible and CCHS will work within your limits and interest in placing animals in your house. Foster care is very rewarding, and there’s a huge need for more sites.

10,000 Visit Retrospective

It’s amazing to me that we’ve had more than 10,000 visitors to this blog since February 2009. Harriett and I thought we’d share a behind the scenes look into a foster home and the type of extra care some animals need before they can go up for adoption to permanent homes. We’re overwhelmed and grateful that so many people are interested in their stories. The goal of this blog, PuppyCam, our Twitter feeds, and Facebook are to use social networking to get these guys into good forever homes.

Obviously we couldn’t do this kind of work alone. The Champaign County Humane Society (CCHS) provides an enormous amount of support. It starts at the top with M. “Tief” Tiefenbrunn, the Executive Director, sending Tweets and mentioning us on TV and Radio. Michelle McKnight, the Shelter Manager; Dr. Jennifer Stone, CCHS’s Veterinarian; and Karen Simmons, the Medical Lab Manager and Foster Care Coordinator; help us keep our foster pets healthy. The adoptions staff at the front desk help match our fosters to good homes.

The animals we take care of are innocent victims. Some of cruelty, some of ignorance, and all of a disposable pet mentality. One way everyone can help them is to spread the word that they are at CCHS and available for adoption.  They can use everyone’s help to find good forever homes.

Most of the time we have moms and puppies, but occasionally a dog like Madrid who needs some recovery time after a medical procedure comes through. Here’s a look back on the first half of this year and who’s appeared on the blog.

Madrid (Feb 2009) Medical Foster
Boogie (Feb 2009) Foster Mom
Daisy (Feb 2009) Foster Mom and Litter
Lucille (May 2009) Foster Mom and Litter
Bonnie and Clyde (July 2009) Foster Pups

Lucille Gets a Mention

It was very nice to see Lucille mentioned in Jim Dey’s column in the Champaign Urbana News-Gazette on Saturday, July 25.

Jim has been out with his daughter several times to help socialize puppies and checks in every now and then to see what we have in foster care. When he called last week we spoke about the large number of very young animals coming to the Shelter and the shortage of foster homes that has caused. I appreciate Jim taking space in his column to mention the problem. Any help we can get to find homes for the animals is always welcome. And maybe the story will prompt a few more people to become foster homes for The Champaign County Humane Society (CCHS).

If you’ve been following this blog you’ve seen what goes into foster care for young puppies. CCHS also needs foster homes for kittens, adult dogs, and cats. Fostering is usually done for a defined period of time. If you’d like to have a dog or cat, but don’t want a full-time commitment, fostering would let you have an animal companion on your schedule. There’s always a need for people who will take dogs and cats of all ages for reasons such as medical recovery or treatments, behavior monitoring and training. 

If you think you would be interested in becoming a foster home please contact Laura Davis, the Volunteer Coordinator at CCHS. Her email address is 2.volunteer@cuhumane.org.