Hi Grace, how many foster dogs have you at the moment?

We’ve two at the moment from Friends of Rescue. Roo the Staffy has just arrived from the pound, she is our 61st foster dog! The other one is Oliver who arrived about 2 weeks ago from the pound with a broken leg, he’s a chi cross. We’ve been really busy since we last spoke because of the increase in animals being surrendered or dumped. Here's a photo of Oliver on my lap and Roo on the right.

Have you ever had no fosters at any point this year?

Never haha. We had a few long termers this year like Hope (who is light brown in the photo below) and Casper, which meant we always had a least one foster during the year. The ones who we have for longer we do miss the most because you get very attached to them. But we're so happy when they find their forever homes, and of course we get updates from their new families. We aren't "normal" fosters of course, it depends on everyone's circumstances. Some fosters may only be available to foster one dog in the year and that's ok too! It's totally their choice and anything helps.

60 is a lot of dogs! How did you manage to foster so many?

I know, and they were all for Friends of Rescue! That 60 includes quite a lot of litters of puppies which is why the number is so high. In fact we started 2024 with two litters of pups here at the same time! The first litter were advertised as free to good home on social media so Friends of Rescue stepped in and took them into their care. The second litter were from a farmer who threatened to kill them if the rescue didn’t take them in... It was a crazy time in our house but luckily puppies tend to be rehomed quickly so we soon got back to a manageable amount!

Do you still love it?

I love it and dogs even more now (if that was possible!) I love looking after the animals that come in, even though it's sometimes sad. We unfortunately lost one of the foster dogs last year, Buttercup, the Frenchie (in the front of the photo below). It was a hard time for us. She may have not being our dog but it was as hard as losing one of ours. Friends of Rescue and the vets did absolutely everything to make her better but unfortunately she was too unwell and passed away after her required operation.

61 fosters and you still haven’t been tempted to keep one?!

Well, actually, we finally had out first “foster fail” on our 60th foster dog about 2 weeks ago. Roxi is a 4month old Staffy and we just loved her as soon as we met her. Why her? Well she was super good with other dogs which is obviously a requirement for us. She also reminded us of my Granny's dog who had to be put to sleep so it was love at first sight. So we have 3 permanent dogs now, but it won’t stop us fostering of course!

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As always if you'd like to chat about getting into fostering just send us a message.