Col. Potter Training Tip: Being an "until" mom

FOSTERING

I'll hold you until you're not afraid to be touched,
I'll pet you until you're no longer afraid of hands,
I'll feed you until you know you can count on your next meal,
I'll be your mom until I trust someone else to love you,
I'll love you until… always.

-- Author Unknown

Fostering a dog is a wonderful and awful experience. It’s wonderful to bring the pup into your home and heart, helping him find new confidence and security. Watching him overcome shyness or fear, and teaching him how to communicate his needs can fill you with awe. Saying goodbye, as he leaves for his forever home, can give you a sense of pride -- and an awful hole in your heart. “I’ll love you until… always” can hurt so much.

In my experience, Col. Potter Cairn Rescue Network has excellent support and education resources for fosters. Experienced and caring volunteer staff members are always willing to lend you advice or a shoulder to cry on. CPCRN provides accessible online files with info on almost every behavior challenge. Their shop carries a book, Adopting a Dog? A Sound Beginning, that is full of handy guidance. But I’d recommend one more book for anyone who is fostering, or is thinking about fostering: How to Foster Dogs: From Homeless to Homeward Bound, by Pat Miller.

Pat is a positive trainer and dog behavior consultant who focuses much of her work on the scientific conditioning processes. So she not only explains how to do something; she explains why. For instance, in her chapter on “Helping Your Fearful Foster Dog Find Courage,” Pat points out that there are actually three related behaviors: fear, anxieties, and phobias. Fear is the reaction to presence or proximity of an object, individual, or situation. Anxiety is caused by an anticipation of real or imagined danger. And phobias -- the most difficult to resolve because they are irrational -- “are persistent, extreme, inappropriate fear or anxiety responses.” Pat goes on to explain how to use counter conditioning and desensitization to change the dog’s fears, anxieties, and phobias.

We all wish that love and good intent alone could resolve a rescued dog’s many challenges, whether the problems are based in genetics or by abuse. But we know better now. The compassion shown by an “until mom” is strengthened by informed approaches to problems.

If only dog behaviorists could find a way to eliminate a foster parent’s tears on the “forever” day...

I was smiling on this foster dog's "forever" day... until he and his forever mom drove away.

❤❤❤

If you'd like to foster, please apply here. The joy almost always outweighs the tears.