What I Got From Fostering Puppies

Dorothy greeting the week-old puppies, fast asleep.

When we first got these roughly 7-day-old puppies, they were under 1-1/2 lbs., their eyes were just opening, and they could barely stand up on their pink padded paws.

Today, at 41 days old, they are being spayed and are ready for adoption.

I agreed to foster these puppies, who were found at a dumpsite with six other litter mates because we had the room, the time, and Dorothy.

I believe two of the puppies didn't make it. The mom was not with them at the time of rescue, but there was a shy female that the shelter was calling their aunt. "Auntie" provided a clue as to their genetic make-up; she was a small-to-medium-sized beagle mix.

Which of the six puppies we took home was totally random. The other foster families had shown up at the same time, so each was given two puppers. It was happenstance which ones we ended up with.

Marit, the Polar Bear

One looked just like a baby polar bear (scientific name, Ursus Maritimus) so we named her Marit. And what a long-legged, rambunctious, funny puppy she turned out to be. She's smart and fast and gets into all sorts of things but is also so loving and a snuggle bug. I believe she eats as much as a cub, screeching and jumping at me to hurry up and feed her!

Piglet.

The other one was named by another foster, pointing out the adorable spots
on the top of her nose, making her look like a little pig. The name suited her, so, Piglet she is and as it turns out, she is true to her namesake. Piglet, like Winnie the Pooh's pal, is timid, sweet, laid back and a wonderful companion, so easy to love.

Over the last few weeks, Marit has grown quickly, scampering about on her lanky legs. She never walks. She always runs and skids to a stop. In the beginning, I made the mistake of introducing her to the couch. Big mistake. She likes it so much, she tries to jump on it herself. She was a bit too small at first, but now that her front paws can reach the top of the cushions, she would have been jumping up on it every chance she got.

Now, jumping down, that's a little trickier.

Marit calculating her trajectory.

One afternoon, after one of her many siestas, Marit jumped before I could stop her. She landed wrong and welped. I scooped her up and held her tight. She wasn't injure but she learned her lesson. She hasn't jumped down again and I learned my lesson, too. I put down towels in front of the couch to soften the fall. We're good.

From the beginning the puppies slept through the night. They rarely stir before 6am, which is when Peter gets up to get ready for work, so it works out. At first, they cried to be fed. Marit's voice is ear piercing! But now, they yelp to get out of their crate, not for food, but to pee. Pretty much every morning, their crate is dry. Such an amazing discovery on my part that dogs understand not to defecate where they sleep.

Another thing I've discovered while caring for such small puppies, which is a first for Peter and me, they are expensive! The St. Croix Animal Welfare Shelter  gives you everything you need if you foster through them but we wanted to do what we could to alleviate some of the expense, so we bought some of the baby food ($1.89/jar they eat 2 jars a day), puppy formula ($5.50/2 oz can of which they drank 2 cans/day), wee wee pads ($3/3 large sheets they went through 6/day), baby bottles ($6/2 bottles), baby rice meal($8 which lasted about a week), canned dog food ($1.89/can/day), bag of puppy kibble ($9/3 weeks), Clorox Urine Remover spray ($9), and rolls and rolls of paper towels, just to give you an idea of what puppies cost to care for. This doesn't include vaccines, tests, and the amount of work it takes to feed them every 4 hours, clean up after them and clean up the stuff you used to feed and clean up after them.

Of course, for me, it's a small price to pay to love and care for helpless animals who may not have survived on their own. And that brings me to the point of this essay.

Hamilton, our first STX Rescue

In May of 2018, I hadn't moved to St. Croix yet. Peter had been living here for 5 months while I went back and forth. One trip down, we had adopted a 12-year-old dog who had heart worm. He was spunky and sweet and so very cute. Hamiliton had a rough start with our big dogs in NY, but they found their way.

In June of 2018, I had returned to visit Peter when the animal shelter asked for fosters. The dogs were leaving for the mainland, they just needed some people to foster them for a few days. So I volunteered.

Peter was renting a very nice house. They didn't allow dogs, but it was only going to be for a few days.

We walked into the shelter. We told them we'd like to foster. Peter started to describe a dog he'd like, "A small dog that you can scoop up with one hand. A mellow dog who doesn't bark..." I stood there while he went on with his preferences, and when he was done, I pointed to a quiet, beefy, pitmix, in a kennel with a relentlessly yapping Chihuahua and said, "We'll take her." Peter was confused. I hadn't even stopped to coo at this one when we first came in. I had walked all around the adoption center and looked at all of the dogs available and he didn't see me stop for her at all. "Why this dog?" He asked. "I thought she was cute. I like her short legs. She's quiet but she hasn't taken her eyes off me." I shrugged. "I just like her."

Dorothy, on guard at the beach. 

Turns out, she was found after the hurricanes. She was adopted by a family who kept her for only seven months or so and surrendered her when they moved off-island. As we led her from the adoption center to our truck, she walked on the leash and allowed Peter to scoop her up and place her on the back seat. Only when we tried to introduce her to other people would we find out she was wary of everyone, particularly men. We found out that she had strange eating habits, but no food aggression because we could mess with her food as she ate and she never growled. She was house broken, leash trained, and like our rescued elderly Basset Hound, Clark, she fixated on one person and was totally devoted. We ended up adopting her and because there was no place like home, we re-named her Dorothy.

Over a year later, she is still skittish, hates to be in public, is quite dominant with most other dogs, and still makes us nervous she may bite someone when cornered.

But for all of her unpredictable personality traits, to me, she is "The Best Dog Ever!" She is eager to please. With us, she is gentle, loving and amicable. Outside, she follows us around and doesn't run away even when off-leashed. She rarely barks. And the most charming part of her, to me is, she feels compelled to take care of me and Peter. When we go in the water to swim, she will follow us, sometimes getting in over her head (with those super short legs, it doesn't take much!) and needing to swim back to shore. She will sit on the sand and watch us in the water. When Peter goes snorkeling and I am stationed in a beach chair, she will choose, reluctantly choose, which one of us to care for. She will growl and bare her teeth if anyone she doesn't know comes too close to me. And when there are puppies, she has been known to climb a vertical cliff to get to them.

And so, I thought, these seven-day-old puppies would benefit from her as a surrogate mom. And I was right. From day one, she took it upon herself to watch over them. She would even give me dirty looks if one of them got hurt while exploring or nudge me to get out of bed to feed them when they howled. Several days after the sisters arrived, she laid down and offered her inactive nipples to the babies. She definitely has had puppies at least once and was determined to mother these two.

Marit's long legs.

As Marit exerted herself, body slamming her sister, the bigger dogs, and we humans, Piglet would sit quietly leaning up against my leg, laying her head on my little toe, looking up at the big dogs or Peter and me with quiet admiration.

As Marit's slim body and legs grew with her constant feedings, Piglet's belly that would expand to such proportions that many times, it dragged on the ground as she waddled away from the food dish or after being bottle-fed. One day, she got stuck and whimpered until I found her wedged between a chair and the wall. Her head and shoulders cleared the space, but try as she might, her belly just would not go through.

To look at Dorothy and Piglet, I started to see such similarities. Both dogs' heads showed signs of what must be their American Stafford Terrier genetics. One day, as Piglet mimicked

Piglet was most definitely, Dorothy's Mini-Me.

Dorothy's stance, I noticed both their furrowed brows. And as I compared them, it dawned on me just how alike they both were in physical attributes and personality. Their stocky bodies, their muscles, their short legs, blocky heads and even their ears were so similar. There is no way Dorothy was Piglet's mother, but damn, if Piglet wasn't her miniature.

Just like Dorothy, Piglet was calm and loved to be cuddled, but not solicitous about giving and getting affection. She often sat back and observed, waiting for just the right moment to pounce, to take the toy you're offering from your hand, to wait to see where you sat down and then sidle up to you to be picked up. She has so many qualities that I love about Dorothy. And that's when it dawned on me.

Of all of the dogs we could have fostered, this one was not only a wonderful adorable love bug, but Dorothy, undamaged. As someone who deals with being abandoned, raising Piglet and Dorothy is so cathartic for me. With the number of rescued dogs we've had over the years, it still boggles my mind how anyone could just turn their back on their pet.

Lewis and Clark, our first rescues,
abandoned dogs we adopted in NY.

For example, our basset hound brothers, adopted after they were dumped in the middle of the Catskill Mountains. Both dogs were at least 12 years old. Why would you raise them for that long and then leave them to die?

Tico waiting for us in the trap.

Tico, our latest rescue appeared one day in our neighborhood. He made eye contact as we drove by and on several occasions tried to get into our car, he just didn't want to live on his own. When he walked into the dog trap we had set and sat there patiently waiting for us to retrieve him, Peter and I looked at each other and said, "Yup, he chose us." Tico came to us house broken, easily walks on a leash, was taught to sleep under a bed after you turned out the lights and in the morning, once he's heard us talking, he jumped back up and greeted us 'Good Day'.

Rescues are a unique breed, each and every one of them an individual onto themselves. And so, I wonder, what happened? What did they do that was so bad that their families decided they didn't love them anymore? What would an animal have to do to make their loved ones leave them in the woods to die? What circumstances occurred that their family could no longer care for them? How can someone forget about their pet? Why would you take a pet at all if you couldn't love them for the rest of their lives?

The pups, the day we brought them home.

Here were these tiny blind, immobile, helpless creatures who needing shelter, food, and water. They had to be bottle-fed; sought comfort when they fell; strove to be accepted into the pack; they wanted love. I was glad to take these puppies and so proud of our abused and abandoned dog, Dorothy, for finding it in her heart to care for them as her own.

I see Piglet as the broken promise made to Dorothy. Someone brought these dogs into this world, but there was nothing to ensure their safety or survive. And even though Dorothy is now 3-5 years old, what happened during IrMaria, the two category Five Hurricanes that hit the island in 2017? Was she already a stray even before the storms? Was she swept away from her home? Or did her family leave the island and leave her behind; which has been the case for most of the strays here on St. Croix?

The pups on their way to being
spayed, on their way to
their forever homes. 

Piglet won't remember her mother. She won't remember being left at the dump. She won't remember Dorothy or me. In other words, unlike Dorothy and me, Piglet won't feel abandoned. And that's good, that's so good because what I hope she'll have are not memories that make her skittish and afraid, like Dorothy, what I hope for her is to remain sweet, trusting, gentle and calm. I hope she finds a forever home where she is played with, cared for, and loved her entire life. Piglet is what Dorothy should have been and I'm so honored to have played a small role in giving Marit and Piglet the beginning of the life they deserve.

Thanks to the St. Croix Animal Shelter for all that they do, for giving my family the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of these puppies and rescued dogs we've adopted before them, and for the countless acts of kindness they perpetuate with each animal and person they come in contact with.