My family is serving as a foster family for a stray dog and her four cute-as-a-button puppies. I wrote about it in my April 24 Mac's Musings column entitled "Fostering Families of All Kinds" inthe Pine River Journal and the Lake Country Echo newspapers.
I thought a few people might be interested in following the dog family's progress so, in my first-ever attempt at blogging, I'll do my best to keep readers up to date.
I did receive a call today from a reader who said her family had seen the dog family a couple of miles from us the week before we found them. Evidently the woman is a softy like me, because she said she didn't see them personally. She knw she would want to keep them and already had three dogs of her own ... However, her husband and children had been seeing that they were fed twice a day.
She told me she just wanted me to know that they had been fed recently - at least for that week. It seems they were just as ravenous then, however, as they were when we met them. They guzzled the food almost to the point of choking, she related.
At our house we have divided their food into three meals a day to help their bellies feel more full and to hopefully assure them they don't need to worry about their next meal.
The fact that the woman lives a couple of miles away leads me to wonder more about where the dog family started their journey. Had they gone just that distance, or many more miles than that?
If you haven't read the column, it is online at http://www.pineandlakes.com/stories/042308/opinion_20080423027.shtml
Photos of the family of puppies are posted at http://spotted.pineandlakes.com/pages/gallery.php?gallery=309133
Stay tuned.
What next?
When the first two puppies first showed up I was concerned about how we'd take care of them along with our own three big dogs. When two more puppies and the mother showed up, somehow my life as I knew it was taken over by a seemingly endless ocean of dogs.
Years ago we rescued other dogs and at the time, unfortunately, HART in Baxter was unable to take them. Somehow our prayers were answered, though, and we managed to find homes for them. OK - so I'll admit our own home became home to some of them. Those pets came to us one at a time, however. Five dogs at once?! There's no way, I thought.
We found some collars in our leftovers stash that fit most of the dogs. We stopped to buy a few more.
Of course the shelter was closed when I first called on Saturday, but Tom talked to someone the next day. I was surprised when he told me HART could take the family. After a huge sigh of relief, questions filled my head, however.
How long does the shelter keep the pets until homes can be found or, tragically, the animals are euthanized? Could we provide foster care for them instead of euthanizing if nobody adopts them? Should we try to find homes on our own first? Was there any chance at all that all of this was a freaky accident and some caring owner was out there searching desperately for his beloved pets?