Sunday, September 24, 2006

Foster Success!


O.k., if we hear, “I could never foster a dog. I would get too attached. It is incredible to me that you can give him up.” one more time, we will scream.

Here is the deal: someone was Mercy’s foster family. If they hadn’t been open in their hearts to the possibility that we were the absolute, just-perfect, made-to-order family for Mercy, we wouldn’t have Saturday mornings that look like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n75HrFUFcMU

Clapton has found his forever family. He got his daddy, and we have to be big enough in our hearts to give him the chance to have his absolute, just-perfect, made-to-order family. He is too cool a guy to keep just because he is too cool a guy.

Now, no one is perfect, least of all, Clapton. His counter-surfing was incredible. We would come home to find dog toys in the kitchen sink. How do you put stuff up high enough to be out of reach for that? I am looking forward to discovering exactly what all got put up onto shelves higher than my 5’5” can reach.

However, about 3 ½ hours into our 4 ¾ hour drive to Clapton’s forever family home, we experienced a bout of what can best be described as “explosive diarrhea,” with a splatter effect that was likely helped greatly by the fact that we were alternatively bombing along the highway at about 80 mph, cutting sharp right to take the closest exit, and coming to a screeching halt. Wow. You have to love a dog to still cry when you drop him off after scrubbing out the back of your car with cold water, pine sol and paper towels on the side of the highway.

We talked to Clapton’s new people this morning, and they reported that he had taken his new daddy on a drag through the local Petsmart this morning, has come to an understanding with the house’s chief chow hound, Max, and decidedly has chosen to ignore the 4 cats.

Here’s how you work the foster dog thing backwards. You drive away and think, “Maybe I just drove away from one of the greatest dogs I could have ever owned.” And maybe you get to the gas station, and as you are arranging stuff in the back of the SUV, pull the carpet aside to get to the under-compartment and find a little overflow that was missed in the roadside cleaning. You get home and the crazy girls that some other foster family hosted once are crazy-happy to see you, and you all laugh and dance and jump around the front yard.

Maybe the cosmos have everything right, after all.

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