Fostering

Yesterday, Dee and I picked up CoaCoa.  She is an 11-month old Shih-Poo doggie.  We are her foster family.  I just was missing having a foster dog in the house, and our rescue was desperate for a foster home.  But...I think it is going to be a great teaching moment.  In the 24 hours CoaCoa has been in our house, we have had a lot of time to talk about foster care.  It's easy to see even though Dee lived foster care, she lived it with assumptions and misreadings.

When they can't take it anymore, you are moved.  That's what Dee said happened in her first foster home.She had a tantrum, and they moved her.  I knew she felt she was the reason she was moved, but I thought it was because she had lied on the foster family...her normal m.o.  I mentioned that foster families usually stop fostering because of health, jobs, family or moving.  She said, "Oh yeah...I do remember they mentioned something about moving.  I forgot."  I told her it was probably coincidence that she had a tantrum the same day she was scheduled to move.

We are her foster family.  Our job is to make sure she is ready for her forever family.  That's what I tell her about the dog.  She is finding out you can love your foster, but you still have to let them go.  When this doggie is adopted, she will be sad.  But she will finally get -- I think -- that her foster mother didn't get rid of her because she didn't like her, but because she did her job.  She got her ready for her forever home.

These are big concepts that she has to re-think, but I'm excited that she is open and verbal.  Crossing my fingers that a scared little dog can teach a scared little girl a big lesson.