koalathebear

Ollie's new family sent us photos of his new crate - pink because they have two little girls :) His new car harness Nova goes on trial adoption on Saturday - I think his foster brothers Elbie and Hoover will miss him. We certainly will.

Nova is doing well. Even though he won't start a trial adoption until he's had a bit more training, we thought that the visit is a good chance to get Nova familiar with his potential family - he has an excellent application from a family who lives only 5 minutes away from us. So yesterday we took him out to their house for a longer meet and greet. They've met him briefly before. We walked through their house, their yard - set up his crate to sure he was comfortable and would go into it while in a strange place. He did. He was very well-behaved in the house. Then we went to a nearby oval to practise recalls with his prospective adopters and since one of his 'duties' is to be a jogging partner, they also practised jogging around the oval. He did that well as well, staying by the handler's side during the jog. So we let Nova stay with them for a sleepover and they're dropping him back today to continue his training with us - he had an exciting day. A long walk, a few errands and lots of human time. We also let them borrow a backseat buddy for driving him around. He seems pretty happy :) They also texted me this morning to say that he slept quietly in his crate last night - all good news :)

Nova's settling in nicely with Elbie and Hoover In other news, we were given another update from Ollie's new family. Even though the first week of the two week trial adoption isn't up yet, they have already decided to keep him - he's already enrolled in obedience classes! He's settling in very well and getting lots of walks, lots of cuddles. I am going to miss him a lot but the family is wonderful. keetamouse - your practice of lending the adoptive family a crate is excellent. We let them borrow one of our soft crates and Ollie's new family have already ordered a new soft crate for him - albeit a pink one :)

Yes - it's not uncommon. Sometimes it's one of the fostering duties to get the dog desexed - a few weeks back we had 'bucket day' when a bunch of us (coincidentally) all had our fosters desexed on the same day. Most get the dog desexed quite quickly but sometimes there might be health reasons why you might delay desexing for a little while e.g. Ollie had a bad cough when I first got him and I waited until that cleared before he was snipped.

We got another lovely update from Ollie's new owners today - he got bed privileges on his second night there when the five year old daughter invited him up for the bed time story :) In other news, while we wait to see how Ollie goes, we are helping a fellow foster carer out with this Kelpie: His name is Nova and he has been dumped twice. You can read all about him at his blog post here. He is very, very smart and trainable and has picked up heaps in just one day. It is very, very sad that neither of his previous owners bothered to spend any time to try training him at all when he is so smart and eager to please. I love Kelpie intensity - they are so intense it is funny

Thanks to everyone for their support during our first fostering experience :) It's been a real eye-opening, learning experience and I knew it would be hard to leave Ollie behind - and it was. He looked for us after we left apparently and jumped up into the seat of a visitor's car as if he was going to go home :) But last night we received an awesomely detailed update from his new mum as well as a bunch of great photos. You can see them here. My fluffy Kelpie-Bear seems to be settling in nicely

The meet and greet went very well today. He got along beautifully with the kids - was very gentle. The 9 year old cattle dog was pretty good with him and they seemed civil. On-leash and off leash interactions were all fine - we met our front, then went for a walk around the block, then let them off leash for a run and then walked back to the house. During the walk, two stray dogs rushed at him but he stood there calmly. He was ok around the alpacas although he ate a lot of alpaca poo. He was also very well-behaved inside the house. The husband liked him, too but is worried about the effect of a second dog on their current dog so the trial will be for two weeks to see how it goes ... It was very hard to say goodbye to him but the home is wonderful - the family is lovely, very dog savvy and very dog-friendly. As it was Ollie's last night with us last night, so we let him sleep on the bed for the first (and last) time. He was a good boy.

I know what you mean :) I also agree with corvus - the difficult dogs can teach us so much more about dogs and ourselves. I have one difficult dog, one easy dog and an easy foster and because of my difficult dog I feel a great deal of understanding for people who also have difficult dogs. I think it makes it easier to understand why some people have to work harder to get a dog to behave a certain way than other dogs. I'm glad you're looking into getting a behaviourist - sometimes, just having someone like that there to observe and comment about how things happen in the house can be hugely illuminating. Good luck with it all.

Thank you! The videos have been very popular. It's so heartwarming to have applicants chatting to us all about the details of Ollie's blog, his development - they say they feel like they know him and when I talk to them, it really does sound like they've gone to the effort to read all the posts and watch all the videos. It makes me feel much more comfortable about them even though I'm going to be soooooo sad this weekend.

Ollie's postponed meet and greet is this Saturday. His prospective family is so excited. The youngest daughter is dancing to his music videos, the five year old has been chatting about Ollie to her grandma and I've been trading emails with the mum about various introduction strategies. We really want it to work, but understand that it can be tricky to introduce a new dog into a family where a 9 year old cattle dog has ruled the roost. Ollie is sanguine: He had a fabulous time at the dog park on the weekend. Photos and videos here. He visited 3 pet stores in Belconnen and got LOTS of pats He has also learned how to rollover. He has become resigned to his cankles He looks smart in his training patches He also has a new music video We've received another very, very good application for him in case the first one doesn't work out. The family sound wonderful and they are sooooo keen to get him. Last week I felt very sad at the thought of losing him and this week I'm still sad, but I am kind of excited for him about the thought that he'll have a wonderful family of his own soon ... ETA: It's a Nina Ottosson Plastic Dog Brick. I bought ours from wagsalot.com.au. Very good brain exercise for the dogs :)

Hoover our second dog is from a registered WKC breeder but Elbie, our first dog, was a freebie from a family in Goulburn whose Kelpie wasn't desexed and impregnated the neighbour's border collie. The neighbour didn't want the puppies so she took them in and looked after them until 8 weeks and then gave them all away. Elbie came to us all wormy, ringwormy and bratty. People say that we were wrong and that we should have waited for Elbie to be taken in by a rescue before adopting him but while I would never get a dog from a BYB again - given the choice, I'd still go back and get Elbie. I foster for a rescue group now so I feel even more strongly about responsible breeding but it really is very unrealistic to say that if all people stopped getting dogs from BYBs that there would be no BYB dogs. Some people just don't care about desexing or don't want to desex their dogs and even if they don't have homes in which to place the dogs, they'd get rid of them in other ways whether it was drowning them or just dumping them. That's even easier than raising them to 8 weeks and then rehoming them. It's not Elbie's fault he came from a bad start and he's a much beloved member of our family now and enjoys obedience, agility and chilling out with his pack. The fact is, there are a lot of unwanted puppies out there and if people can offer them a good home, I think that they shouldn't be judged for doing so... I know that that's not the 'right' thing to say on DOL, but it's how I feel.

Hoover rocking the doggles Poor Elbie looked kind of goofy in them

Thanks! He's also on the AWDRI facebook here. He's such a gorgeous boy. The meet and greet has been temporarily postponed because of an illness in the applicant's family - so Ollie will be with us for a bit longer. I'm very sorry for the family but I am happy to have the teddy bear with us just a little bit longer. I hadn't quite geared myself up to say goodbye yet :p

Thanks, am deathly allergic to cats and know nothing about them but have referred my friend to Andrea who definitely sounds like she knows what she's talking about :)

A colleague can't foster dogs because of apartment size constraints but would love to foster cats. She has an existing cat so the RSPCA kitten fostering is out because that requires complete segregation - can anyone recommend a reputable cat rescue in Canberra that would not have a problem with the foster carer allowing the foster cat to hang out with an existing cat? Thanks in advance!

Yes it was - he is soooooooo clever!! :) I am also finding this week quite hard because as the very real prospect of adoption looms, I am torn between being happy for him because the home would be awesome (if the meet and greet works out) and feeling very sad/guilty at the thought of giving him up. I know he's only been with us a month but we have already become very, very attached to him even though we always knew that his time with us was only temporary, he is not our dog and that our 'objective' was to socialise him, get him healthy and find him a wonderful forever home. In my heart, I know that will have a better life with another family (being a solo dog or part of a two dog family will be better for him than being part of a 3 dog family :) but it's very hard to hand him over aftre nursing him through kennel cough, training him and seeing him settle in so well here - he seems to THINK that he is part of our family and that THIS is his forever home. I keep telling myself that there's another dog out there that needs help, too ... I guess this seems laughable to people who have fostered heaps of dogs :p

rubiton - as other people have mentioned, rescue groups help each other out. I've seen a person affiliated with one organisation temp caring for a dog for another organisation until it could get picked up. I've seen rescue groups share transport runs as well and do checks for one another. These are volunteer organisations and do not have a huge network and unlimited resources so have to help each other out. All the rescue groups I've seen say that a yard check/background inquiries like checking of references is needed, so by submitting an application to foster/adopt a dog - people do this with the full knowledge that this information will be used by the group to make an assessment about whether a home is suitable. From a strictly legal perspective, in terms of whether the provisions of the Privacy Act apply, please see this site. Most rescues are small with turnover well under the $3 million annual turnover so are not bound unless they choose to opt in like these organisations have I do appreciate that privacy is a concern but rescue groups are also attacked if they do not do their due diligence when placing a dog with a home so a yard check is a fairly basic prerequisite in the checklist of due diligence items. If people are concerned, they can always make a request that their information is not further shared without their consent.

He has a meet and greet this Saturday! Although it all turns on whether he'll get along with the family's 9 year old ACD female! Here be Ollie and the dog brick. He is sooooo cute and attentive Kelpie x Teddy Bear - stocks are limited. Actually only one left :)

Hi Padraic - I'm sure some will have differing views but I think that a lot of the reason for the attention was his age. I think that for any dog lover, the thought of such an old dog being dumped at the pound during his twilight years is quite heart-breaking. I'm sure that the purebred element was in the minds of some but certainly not in the minds of many of us ...

Elbie and his expressive eyes that look right through you. We always joke that he's a human trapped in a dog's body - and he doesn't like it!

Some photos Hoover being Devil Dog Ollie leaping Some nice photos of Ollie Hoover having his bum bitten by Ollie Elbie unimpressed that the interloper is still around :)

I was very sorry to hear about Ned but am glad that at the end, someone who cared about him was there for him. About this comment: I think the issue is that it is frequently the case that an experienced GS owner is more likely than not to already own a dog - whether a GS or not. While I'm sure there must be experienced GS owners out there who are without a dog from time to time and are therefore in a position to take in a dog that doesn't get along well with others - there's the timing issue. In this instance, Ned had already been moved from place to place and given his age and history, it would probably have been cruel to keep him in a holding pattern until the appropriate home came along. Poor Ned - there was a lot of bad luck and bad timing for him :'(

I think people get offended for different reasons. For instance, newbies might think: "I'm trying to rescue the dog - isn't a home with me better than being put to sleep at the pound" etc. It's tricky. Also, the fact that some people have had a long-lived dog means experience but sometimes it's a matter of luck. For instance, one of my colleagues had a dog that lived till 12 and he's extremely proud of the fact that it never got wormed, vaccinated, taken to the vet and it was fed all sorts of things that dogs shouldn't eat like cooked chicken bones. It also lived unfenced. To make sure that a rescue group does the right thing by each dog - and indeed the new owner - I think it is important to try to make sure that the adopter's situation (including fencing etc) is appropriate for the dog. It's a matter of communication - if groups can make sure that people understand it's for everyone's best interests in the long run and not just because of arbitrary rules and power trips, it probably helps. I will also freely admit that I suspect that there's no way any rescue would have rehomed a dog to us when we first started out. It's a bit different now but in the beginning, no :)

None of my dogs is aggressive but I think I know what you mean - out of the three dogs I have right now, Elbie is the one that has taught me the most because he has more issues. Hoover the second dog to be added to our family was almost like a dream dog with no problems/issues, gets along with everyone, loves everyone. Elbie by contrast was a mouther as a pup, used to go crazy in the car or if we put the leash/collar/car harness on him, used to get feral when handled, got snarley around strange dogs. He grew out of all of these things but he still doesn't like strange dogs getting in his face and I would never let him just run around with a dog the way I would let Hoover, I would not leave him with someone else the way I could with Hoover. For a free to a good home dog he has been an incredibly expensive dog but we love him - in fact he's my husband's favourite dog because he's so smart and almost human - and we learned a lot about training, handling dogs etc from him. It is a huge commitment though and it can be very emotional/worrying. Accordingly, all of the dogs we foster must be confirmed to be non-aggressive before they come to us - I feel like we can pretty much handle everything else but because one of our dogs is very sensitive to snarly/aggressive dogs, we have to be careful.

I foster and we completed a very detailed form and had a yard/house check done before we started fostering. We had the check done within several days of submitting our foster application. I have to admit some of the questions and procedures we make potential adopters go through must seem weird to someone new to it all. When I told someone that they'd have to have a yard check done before they met the dog, they used the phrase "rescue nazis". My dog Elbie was a free to a good home dog and Hoover was from a WKC breeder - in both instances, we emailed extensive details of our yard, our plans etc but to be honest, no one seemed to really care/check anything before they handed the dog over - so I can see why to the average person, the rigor of a rescue group's adoption checks must seem strange.