I’ve always been a glass half there kind of a girl.
I’m not so much a glass-half-empty person; I don’t like to look at things negatively. But I’m also not a true optimistic so it’s hard to consider myself a glass-half-full kind of gal.
Brett Young said it best. “A heart half full or half empty is half gone either way.”
Now that’s kinda depressing, but it’s true. And I look at my recent foster failure as exactly that.
Many of you know I’ve been fostering two of the sweetest dogs for a little over a year now.
I’m a dog person. That’s obvious.
I love being a dog momma, and I know I spoil my pets all day every day. But I’ve never thought I could be a good outdoor dog mom. I’ve heard all the bad things some want to say about people who leave their dogs outside. How could you do that? What about the weather? What if they get too cold or too hot?
But what I learned as a foster dog mom was at least I was giving them a chance when no one else could.
See, these foster dogs — Sadie and Saban — were, yes, the sweetest little dogs. But, well, one wasn’t so little. That’s for sure. Saban is about 80 pounds worth of pure pit bull muscle, and Sadie is just a little thing.
But these dogs also liked to escape. For the first several months when they were just puppies, it was easy to keep them contained, especially once they were fixed. But as time went on and they got bigger, they became true escape artists. I’m trying to tell y’all, any way they could get out, they would. I even got a text from the neighbor once, “You’ll never believe this but the little brown one is on top of your shed.”
It’s a small shed, to be sure. But it’s a shed nonetheless. How in the world did she get on top of it? Probably the same way she found herself on the inside of my poor neighbor’s fence, and she literally squirmed her way up his fence to freedom.
If any of my neighbors are reading this, look me up. I owe you a steak dinner for your patience with these babies.
And my husband too. See, I’m the dog lover of the family. He’s a cat guy, and I’ve succumbed to being a cat mom as well. We have three cats now, but I’m the dog person. I was the one who wanted the fosters, and he became their dog dad too. That’s just who he is.
Long story short, we had to give Mr. Saban and Miss Sadie a new foster home. They weren’t safe with me any longer, and I felt like I failed. I didn’t know how to keep them contained, and even animal control was hot on their trail. I wanted to save them, but we have four dogs of our own and we couldn’t take them in.
Instead, after weeks of searching, we found the perfect new foster home for Saban and Sadie. I drove all the way out to Hackneyville last week with tears in my eyes, knowing I had failed them. But now, looking back — was the fostering a success?
They are fully grown dogs now, they are beautiful and you can tell they eat real good. They are happy and attached to each other, so they have a built-in best friend. And now, they are living on a property that is truly my dream — out in the country, filled with other dogs.
So maybe it wasn’t a glass-half-empty type of situation after all. For those happy-go-lucky pups, the glass is always half full anyway.
Lizi Arbogast Gwin is the managing editor of Tallapoosa Publishers Inc. She can be reached at 434-962-9420 or via email at lizi.gwin@alexcityoutlook.com.
