We Are Foster Failures & Loving Every Minute Of It
You can't change a dog's past but you can rewrite it's future!
Happy Monday! Today we’ve got a guest post submitted by
. Henny volunteers at his local humane society and proudly brags about being a failure. If you scroll through his notes feed, you’ll quickly see that not only does he love humor, but he loves featuring shelter dogs 💓FALL 2022:
Here’s a scenario that most adults at some point have found themselves in:
A social cause or needy organization comes into your world somehow—maybe via Facebook post, a news story, or a friend's anecdote. However it comes to you, you become fixated on it.
You must help. They need your help.
An email is sent. A reply offered. And away we go.
Then something happens. You arrive on the scene to save the day and realize, oh crap, this sucks. While you may have never had the exact thought that, “Hey, this is gonna be really fun and the people will be so grateful and happy to see me,” let’s be honest, it was probably somewhere in your subconscious.
Since retiring from my first career last year I have had a few of these episodes. Some I have pushed through and found immensely rewarding. Some, I bailed on toot suite.
My family and I are currently involved in the latest iteration.
It involves a dog. A rescue dog to foster. Because of course it does. And for those wiseasses like myself, no we didn’t literally rescue it off the street. There was some organization, made up of people way better than I, that did all the hard work. We just had to show up and take the thing.
We love dogs and were excited about fostering.
Especially since these dogs were so in need. Over 4,000 beagles had just been rescued from a nasty facility that bred them to sell for animal testing. Because we already had two dogs of our own we weren’t looking to adopt.
When my wife and daughter picked the beagle up he didn’t have a name, just a tattoo inside his ear as his only identification. We were told we could name him. Since we weren’t planning on keeping him my wife let our daughter pick the name.
I'm not sure if you remember, but Tom Cruise’s epic Top Gun sequel, Maverick, dominated the summer of 2022.
Say hello to Maverick the puppy:
Predictably, this is what happened: We fell in love, the dog came out of its shell, the human child had enough of the dog, the human adults wished the dog would go back in its shell, and chaos ensued.
Maverick was all at once the sweetest dog I had ever held in my hands, AND a holy terror. But I’m sure that’s not news to you. Puppies and human children are the same. God or evolution designed them to be unbelievably cute to prevent us from strangling them.
Too aggressive? Ok. Let’s just say they were designed to be cute enough for us to keep wanting more of them.
Better?
Good.
Here’s where the rubber meets the road in this story.
Were we going to keep the dog or continue to foster it so we could find its forever home? Were we going to continue to allow this twenty-pound menace to drop literal bombs in our house on a semi-daily basis or go back to our peaceful existence? Was I going to continue to use pronouns to reference him or finally give in and call him by his name?
(By the way, for men reading this in similar situations….using phrases like “it” and “the dog” is a great way to downplay the dog’s importance in your house. Kind of like calling the boyfriend of the girl you have the hots for Keith when you totally know his name is Kevin)
Of course we kept Maverick. Why? Because I loved him. Why really? Because I love my wife. Ok, maybe both. But I’ll tell you one thing, if he were ugly that stinker would’ve been gone baby gone.
APRIL 2025 UPDATE
The genesis of the piece above was something I wrote a few years ago but never did anything with. When I first talked to Kristi about including it in Dog Snobs, I figured I’d just add a few pictures and send it to her. Much to my chagrin, the piece no longer resonated with me. I’m coming to find out that such is the life of a writer. Muchas gracias to Kristi for allowing me the time to rewrite it and for including it in Dog Snobs!
I am happy to report that Maverick is still a vital, happy, and mischievous part of our family. Sadly our sweet and spunky Lucy passed away about a year and a half ago.
Lastly, I’ve finally found a volunteer organization that I truly love being involved in: our local humane society. Not the one we got Maverick from, but where we got Darla when she was a pup. Here’s what she looked like….
If that sweet face doesn’t make you wanna run to your nearest local animal shelter, I don’t know what would.
Have you or do you currently foster shelter animals? Have any of them become foster fails? Do tell!!
For those who aren’t privy, Beagles are commonly bred and used as “lab rats” for animal testing. These laboratory dogs live caged lives and are subjected to endless and often painful laboratory testing. To learn more, you can visit the End Animal Testing website.
 | A guest post by
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Love this! My daughter was just a foster failure!
We have 2 rescues and I was NOT keen at all. But over time I have been won around by them. I enjoy walking them and their little characters. Thanks for sharing this story.