On this 31st day of April...yup, check your calendars!...we have a special 'tails from home'! Today we hear from all the Foster Hounds!
We are the hounds that came before. We are the ones that you took into your homes on our way to a forever homes. We come in many different colors and sizes but our shapes were pretty much all the same; slick and sleek models of 100% greyhound! Through the years we have come to you healthy and happy, and a few of us on the mend from fluke track injuries, and your door was open to all of us.
First let us hear from the least common of foster hounds (thankfully!), those who became diagnosed with a terminal illness. You and your family took it upon yourselves, knowing that adoption would be a rather slim option, and gave me a forever home and forever family! Taking on the arduous task of caring for me during the time I had remaining and putting in countless hours and vet visits to try and see if there was treatment to make my life longer and better. Above all else you gave me a forever home, a place and a family to call my own, in the last months of my life. For that I shall be forever happy and greytful! And I am waiting at the Rainbow Bridge for the time for our BIG MEET AND GREET...
Now, of course, there were those of you who were…how can we put this delicately without offending anyone?...well, let’s say, you seriously failed Fostering 101! And you know what they say, “no one likes a quitter”....... But we do, we really, really, really do! Because had you not quit we would not have such a wonderful home and family to call our own. So, turn that frown upside down you big old quitter, we are glad you quit with us! We could not be any happier!
And, that brings us to the majority of the foster parents in our list. Those of you who took us into your home for a week, a month, or two, and taught us to be better ambassadors for our breed and to become someone’s forever baby. We came with all different types of personalities and traits, some that needed to be curbed, and we learned to live in homes instead of kennels. Often this process was an easy transition and sometimes.......well, sometimes, the conversations went like this...
You get home from picking us up and all is going really well, we have taken in the back yard smells and activities, and then you open the back door to the house and the entire world stops right then and there. You can actually feel the world stop spinning on its axis and the hound looks at you.....
“You want me to do what? Go up them you say? HUH.... They are stairs you say. Yes, you have repeated that word several times now and it still does not make me anymore interested in placing any of my limbs onto it. I say just back away from it before it wakes and no good comes from it. Seriously, dude, you are going to put your hand on it and pat it? Great, now you’re going to try and placate and you want me to go up it? When your hand gets ripped off I am SO out of here and you are SO on your own! And now you are going to step on it. DO YOU HAVE A DEATH WISH???????? WAIT NO... Don’t put my paw on there!...I am so calling Donna after this and reporting you for animal cruelty…dang non opposable thumbs! What?!...nothing is happening??????? Maybe this stair beast has been tamed and I have shown it who is boss?”
And, so, that is one that you may get! There are many, many other wonderful (and sometimes requiring patience) personalities too!
We all come into your lives with one thing in common; a goal to find a forever home and a forever family! And with your patience and guidance we learn to live in houses and to transition from our life of racing to a life of true retirement. You are there while we learn to play with toys for the first time. And also there when we are up all night afraid of the first thunder storm that rolls through and we feel unsure and unsafe. But most of all you give us all this love knowing that we will not be staying with you. You gave us all this just to prepare us to be someone else’s forever greyt pet. Your support, encouragement, and above all else unconditional love, has helped us to go onto new homes, new families, and new adventures.
So, for those who have taken time to foster and care for us, whether you took us in as one of your own because circumstances made time short, or if you where a big ol’ Foster 101 failure, or have had many of our paw prints pass your threshold…we thank you! Without your time and support and unconditional love we would not become the best hounds we could be. We hope that we have left a lasting impression with you, as you have with us! And, in unison, we lift up our voices in one pack howl...!!!
YAPPY FOSTERING
The voice of the NLGA Foster Hounds...Past, Present, and Future!
If you are interested in the rewarding experience of fostering a greyhound, please, please, please contact us!
No comments:
Post a Comment