Foster Dogs

From time to time we fostered displaced Greyhounds and Fox Terriers on behalf of a Greater Northwest Greyhound adoption group and a Puget Sound Fox Terrier rescue. Below are some of the dogs we were privileged to accommodate over the years, most of them for a few weeks, one of them permanently and entirely by accident.

What Fostering a Retired Racer Actually Involves

Less than people expect, and more than we expected the first time. A foster dog arrives knowing how to be a racing Greyhound and almost nothing else, and the job is mostly translation.

The first three days are quiet ones. A dog off a transport has usually been in a crate for a long time and is not yet ready to be a personality; ours generally slept, ate cautiously, and watched. The learning starts around day four, and it is all the domestic furniture of a life nobody has shown them: stairs, which are genuinely baffling to a dog from a single-story kennel and are taught one leg at a time; sliding glass doors, which every single one of them will walk into once, so we taped a strip of paper at nose height until the penny dropped; polished floors, which slide; and full-length mirrors, which contain another Greyhound who refuses to be sniffed.

Then the practical work. House-training is usually easy, because a dog raised in a crate on a turnout schedule already wants to keep his own space clean. Being left alone is the hard part, and worth spending real time on: a racing dog has never in his life been by himself. We built it up in minutes, starting with the mailbox, and always left the crate open.

And cat testing, which we did carefully, on leash, with an experienced cat, more than once, on different days. The answer matters enormously to the family the dog is going to, and it is not a question anyone should guess at. There is more on prey drive and the rest of it on our Greyhound facts page.

Somewhere in the middle of all this you learn the dog: whether he is bold or worried, whether he likes children, whether he can be trusted with a Fox Terrier, whether he guards his bed. Writing that down honestly for the adoption group is the actual product of fostering. Everything else is board and lodging.

The Dogs

Lift Off "Kristy"

Kristy rode the "Greyhound Bus" from Kansas City to Seattle in March 2004. We failed miserably as her foster family and she is now a permanent resident of the Greyhound Retirement Home. Her own page is here, and she has never once apologized.

Corkie

She was found wandering the streets of Pasco, Washington and was never claimed by anyone. Corkie is now happy and healthy and living with her new family in British Columbia, Canada.

Winston

A Wire Fox Terrier who was only six months old when he was displaced from his home. He now lives with his new family in the Seattle area. A terrier puppy in a house of Greyhounds is a study in contrasts, and the Greyhounds lost.

Smith & Jones

A pair, and inseparable. Rest in peace Smitty. You were a very sweet boy!

Magnum

This handsome brute is now living with his new family in Seattle, which includes Polo the Dalmatian and Phoebe the Beagle.

Baxter

Found as a stray and not claimed. Baxter has now emigrated to Canada and is living the life he deserves with his loving new family.

Hummer

Rest in peace sweet Hummer. Your life was short but you were deeply loved.

Jazz

It took a while, but Jazzy is now a Canadian citizen and living the good life she always deserved.

Nemo

Ok, so he's a little pigeon-toed and his eyes are slightly crossed. Big deal! Nemo is a very sweet boy still living in Seattle.

Recon

Now living in his forever home with a Whippet and an Italian Greyhound, which makes him the tall one for the first time in his life.

Crimson Tide

Tide now rolls on five fully fenced acres in Tumwater, Washington, with the adoptive family who took one look and made up their minds.

Reggie

What a love! Reggie now lives with his new family in the Seattle area, which includes Ophelia, another rescued Smooth Fox Terrier.

Mikie

Can you say couch potato, boys and girls? Mikie is now living in Spokane, Washington with his five Greyhound brothers and sisters.

Pepper

AKA the energizer bunny. Pepper now lives in Seattle with her mom and two kitties, which tells you how her cat test went.

Runa

The cutest, tiniest Greyhound in the world. Runa is the size of a Whippet and looked particularly adorable with her red toenail polish.

Sound Sleeper

Sleeper is deaf but clearly doesn't know or care that she's different. She's a big, beautiful and loving girl, and hand signals took her about a week.

Isaac

Isaac is a tall, sweet, gentle boy. He comes complete with a dowry that includes his own giant bed.

Josh

Our current foster boy at the time this page was last kept up. Josh is one of the longest Greyhounds we've ever seen. He's a sweet, smart, loving boy.

The One Who Stayed

Every foster home has a failure rate and ours is one in eighteen, which we consider respectable. Kristy came for a few weeks in March 2004 and decided within days that the arrangement suited her; there was never really a decision to be made after that. She went on to become a certified therapy dog, which is a better outcome than anything we had planned for her.

The rest of them went where they were meant to go. That is the point of it, and the day the van leaves is both the good part and the awful part. Anyone considering it should know that in advance: you are not keeping the dog, you are teaching him what a house is so that somebody else can enjoy the finished article. General guidance on bringing any new dog home is well covered in the standard general dog care resources, and the breed specific parts come from your adoption group. The terrier side of the household, meanwhile, is documented at length elsewhere on this site, and the breed reference for a Smooth Fox Terrier does not begin to prepare you.

Most of these dogs turn up again in the photo album, generally asleep.