puppy heartbreak

people told me that fostering would be hard, but i didn't believe them. i figured i was coming into the situation knowing that we'd only have the dog on a short-term basis, and then it would be off to its permanent home. it's like a puppy timeshare-- you enjoy it while you have it and then send it off for someone else to enjoy. i also thought it would be a good part-time ownership scheme-- we would get to enjoy having a dog, but we wouldn't have to incur the long-term costs. when we go on vacation, we wouldn't have to worry about kennelling or pet-sitting, we just let the rescue organization know we need a break from fostering for a few weeks. if we got a dog that was less than ideal, we would rest easy knowing it would be adopted soon and we wouldn't have to deal with it for that long. no problem, right?

that was until we got bonnie. i didn't imagine that rescues could be as sweet-tempered, well-mannered, and loving as she is. i guess i thought that the majority of animals in the system were coming from shelter environments (or unknown environments), so they'd not be in the best of shape. i was clearly wrong. bonnie fell into some hardship, of course, as she ended up in a shelter, but she was clearly well-taken care of and well-trained before she got there. there were some suggestions of potential abuse, but it never manifested itself in more than a few flinches... which she got over once she figured out we just wanted to play and love on her.

the good thing is that i'm pretty confident she's going to a good home. her new family is moving into a house with a yard this month, and they live near the beach, and there's a 13-year-old son in the family that already loves her. the sad part for me is that i think she would have been a good fit for our family, too. i fear that she'll be the best fit we find, and we'll regret not adopting her when we had the chance.

if that's the case, though, it might make fostering easier-- i won't have as much desire to keep the dogs we foster, and i'll have a better time emotionally accepting the fact that we do only have the dogs for a short period of time. but who knows-- maybe my heart just opens up and it'll be hard every time. i can't imagine how people who train guide dogs do it. we only had bonnie for two months, and guide dog trainers have their pups for 18 months. it's a heartbreak waiting to happen, even when you know it's going to have a happy ending.