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Fostering dogs, falling in like, and saying goodbye over and over to our own forever girl.

“…just makes it too precise and too clear that Johanna’s not here” Sometime, within a day or two after a foster dog gets adopted, these Dylan lyrics inevitably roll into my brain whether it’s in the middle of the night, stumbling to the bathroom, sleep-drunk,remembering to walk around a dog bed or crate that’s not there anymore or coming home to an empty place with no furry creature waiting to go out to pee. Or greet you with an enthusiastic butt wiggle. Whenever it may be, at some point my brain gets nudged out of autopilot and realizes “Right, that little pupper lives somewhere else now” I feel a little bittersweet twinge. Sad, but happy. It’s the whole point of fostering, delivering a homeless dog to a home and a loving human. Or many loving humans. 

But soon after, my brain has to recalibrate again, as it works to connect to a longer term reality. A meaner reality.  My own forever girl is gone and not coming back. 

And so this, I have discovered – maybe 2 foster dogs in -, is part of fostering. After each foster is adopted, whisked away and acclimating with his or her new people, I am left with the never changing knowledge that Maggie Lou is not here. That our time together is done. There may be another Arkansas mutt that will jump into my car, chew a hole in my rug, dig up my plants, but my Tennessee girl’s chapter has closed. That bed that I lay out each time we sign up for a new foster was Maggie Lou’s bed first. And she’s never going to ease onto it, rollover and watch me out the side of her eye again. And feeling that truth over and over again, frankly, sucks. It stings and it aches. And for a moment I think to myself, that was the last one. This is too hard and sad. And it makes it too precise and clear that Maggie Lou’s not here. 

Eventually I come out of my feelings. Or at least into different feelings. And I recognize of course that’s not the last foster pup. To come into my home, to borrow ML’s bed or to poke at that hole in my heart. And maybe that’s the way it should be. Today is Maggie Lou’s Gotcha Day. On this day in 2012 we brought her home from Northeast Animal Shelter, introduced her to her bed and her little human cousins. And she became forever a piece of our hearts. So we always remember her, miss her, honor her, on those significant days-when she came into our lives and when she left the world. But maybe it is perfect that we remember and feel her absence so acutely each time a foster dog leaves our home so they can become part of their own forever families hearts. 

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