Easy way to make yourself insane...as experienced by Sageofages
 

It is official. Mr. Sageofages and I are about to be declared and verified crazy.

Why?, you might ask. Well, let me illuminate....

I am privately freaking out here...it is good and bad...after my last
two weeks, I thought I could use some down time....LOL...fate thought
otherwise.

About 3 years ago (at the start of the Iraq *incursion, conflict, war, whateveryouwanttocallit), I registered with netpets.org, a foster pet program
for military service members. Essentially volunteers foster service
members pets while they are deployed in Iraq. Three years...nothing.

So what happens about two days before I leave for my Thanksgiving holiday. The organization notifies us that we have been tapped to foster the pets for a Iowa Guard member who has been activated. The service member has to set up an allotment for food and vet care, the dogs are microchipped and we get copies of her orders.

She brought her babies over two days ago. TWO large black labs. We will
be fostering them for about 15 months. I have TWO large dogs now...FOUR large dogs (>75 lbs each) is freaking me out. We have a good sized fenced yard. Poor woman, she cried when she left. The dogs are 9 years old and she has had them since they were 5 weeks old. Both are neutered, which is good because my golden retriever is not.

The dogs are IDENTICAL..except one has spots on his tongue and other does not. So I bought them two different color collars so I don't have to say "ok pant so I can see who you are".

Imagine the food we are going to go through for the next year. We go
through about 20 pounds of dry dog food a week now! So one 44 pound of dog food a week...(and what goes in, comes out eventuallly!!!!!)

SO FAR...everyone is doing well. There was some pack posturing by my golden with the lab that is the more dominant brother. The less dominant male and my spayed female german shepard were acting like "wow...new friends!".

I hope everyone settles into a routine so there isn't constant barking...today is much quieter than yesterday was.

This could be an adventure. Mr Sageofages is so patient ow...:) I am
so grateful it didn't put him over the edge :) :)

Well God bless you - you are doing a truly selfless thing! It's one thing to say you are supporting our troops - quite another to do it so literally. Hats off to you.

I agree with everything SWTXBelle said - I admire you for doing this!

OMG, Pam - I want to come to your house!! I love big dogs and FOUR is my idea of heaven!! I'm sure the "kids" will all get along fine after they calm down. :)

PICTURES!!!!!!!

My friend was in a similar situations 3 years ago. She had 3 very large mixed labs then took in a boarder who brought 2 lab mixes. On occasion, she dog sits for friends. One time I stopped over, I could hear 32 legs galloping toward the door.


They all bark, but they are sweethearts. And so is their Alpha mom.

BTW...want pictures too

What a great organization to set that up! How cool SageofAges is for participating!

I honestly had never even considered that issue before, and as a pet owner, I would be heartbroken to have to permanently give up my dogs.

I think I'm at the legal limit for the number of pets I can have in my town, but if ever I'm not, I might sign up.

I'm seriously going to have to consider signing up once I get my apartment in some sort of reasonable order. I probably couldn't take a large dog, unless s/he was older even though they're my favorite, but that's such an awesome program!

I think what you and your husband are doing for these dogs is simply wonderful, Pam. Then again, I'm a sucker for big dogs too as we have a 70 lb. golden and a 82 lb. golden mix! Enjoy the insanity and hopefully they all settle in quickly.

That is such a sweet thing you're doing. Give them a scratch behind the ears from me. :)

It is amazing you are willing to open your home to help foster a serviceman/woman's pet!! I totally want to sign up...once we get the house!

So.... If I should send Large Dog food coupons to "The Crazy SagesofAges" in Iowa, you'd probably get them?


Seriously, that's a wonderful service you're doing. I'm on a small dog list for fostering. Our dog may have something to say about it, though.

Any donations of Pedigree Adult - Small Crunchy bites (we will go through a 44 pound bag a week at this rate), milk bone dog biscuits, or tons of rawhide chew toys will undoubtedly be greeted with wagging tails.

Our local walmart has already noticed :). When I went there to get two bags of food (88 lbs) and bought two new colored collars (so I can tell the boys apart!) and two new choke leads to be able to walk them without having my arm yanked out of socket, our "regular" cashier said "what did you do? get new dogs?" :D

Pam, that is awesome. What a mitzvah you are doing!

and I'm with DaemonSeid - I wanna see pictures too!

How nice of you and your husband to do this. I didn't even know a program like this existed.

As someone who has used this program to foster our beloved bulldog Churchill, I can't sing your praises enough, Pam! It is a wonderful thing you're doing and will undoubtedly allow the soldier mom of these two poochies to buckle down and do her job, secure in the fact that her "children" are being well taken care of. Give 'em some pats for me. :D

i think that somehow we should notify "the dog whisperer" about pam and her foster children(and of course, her original babies, too). anyone have any idea how we could do this?

i will start looking for coupons. we have an 80 lb. golden who goes thru the food too quickly-i cannot imagine 4!

Pedigree? Yuck. If you switch to a high quality food, the dogs will eat less and you will not go through a bag so quickly. It sounds more expensive, but you end up saving money in the end.

That's wonderful! I never even considered what happens to the pets when people are deployed. Will you be sending doggie updates to the Mommy while she is in Iraqi?

Our dogs either turn their noses up at the more expensive stuff, or worse, end up with it being rather nasty when it reappears... Pedigree works very well for us.

Happy and Dopey were eating the Pedigree when they arrived here (which was a relief), and according to the foster agreement, we need to feed them according to their mom's instructions.

We are going to set up a myspace/website (depending on their mom's access..as some bases have myspace blocked) for them. I keep referring to myself as "aunt pam"...my sons are cracking up over this.

We will have photos up somewhere by the end of the weekend. It snowed yesterday (it is Iowa in Winter afterall), and they are just adorable against the snow. The best part...I can seem them at night then!

I hadn't heard of this program, and I am just filled with admiration for you for doing this. Happy and Dopey are so lucky to have found such a wonderful foster mom!

I've never heard of this program either. I can see it being slightly traumatic for the pets, but far less so than a shelter, that's for sure. Truly a great thing to do. Makes me wish I was buying a bigger house...

It has been far harder on Happy than Dopey. Happy kind of cried for quite a while the first night...sort of a whispered wimper..with occasional howls. He barked constantly the first day out in the yard...but by today, no whimpers and no barking in the yard. He is definitely a "mommie's boy" and follows me around our house, demanding attention from me.

Dopey is perfectly happy with our chaos and to be part of it.

LOL, I LOVE the names! You are a good woman, sage. Like others, I never even gave a thought to what the soldiers do with their pets when they have to go...

Sageofages,

Perhaps you could suggest to the organization that they set sometime up online to allow donations that they could then redistribute to foster caretakers to help offset costs for the fostering folks?

ETA: Er, they already do https://www.netpets.org/netp/donation.php. (SofA, did you already mention this? I'm struggling with reading comprehension lately.) But maybe they don't hand the money out to fostering folks directly?

Or if you want to put all your personal info on Greek Chat, which I personally wouldn't, I know that I'd be happy to mail you a Walmart gift card for you to spend on food. (not that the amount I could send would make much of a dent in the overall bill.)

I bet that the number of people who would give money to this cause would be bigger than we could imagine. It combines being about to show support for deployed troops with helping animals; who wouldn't want to help?

No they don't distribute the donated funds to the folks doing the fostering. The service member is to pay the costs of "living expenses and vet care". However, until she gets it set up...we are bearing the costs for these two. (They really are good boys!). So far, I have noticed an uptick in the amount of food my dogs consume as well...I see it as a competition thing for a while.

Since they are here, I have discovered two pressing needs. I need to extend my kennel fencing to surround my back door. As it is, we normally walk the dogs out the backdoor, down some steps and then put them into the kennel gate. Our german shepard complies with verbal commands for this....HOWEVER, our golden retriever must be restrained (held) because if he is loose, he is *gone* in a blink! I don't know Happy and Dopey well enough to know if letting them loose is a good idea or not. My sense is *not*! I want to extend my wooden privacy fence about 13 feet in one direction out from the garage and then 15 feet perpendicular to the side of the house (along a concrete pad we have). This would allow me to just open the back door to let them in and out all day long as they need. The kennel will still have its own gate, and give me a "ante" area for getting them out the door with no escaping. UNFORTUNATELY, we now have 4 inches of snow with 4 more predicted for tomorrow. Not gonna put up fencing in that weather.

Second, I need to find a better watering situation. Before Happy and Dopey arrived, we used an old 18 qt stainless steel stockpot for water. This was sufficient for both dogs for all day (and they could both drink at the same time). Not working for 4 big dogs. I need to get something with a wider mouth and more capacity. Additionally, I will need to be able to put a heater on it to keep it from freezing during the cold. I priced a nice stock watering unit from Ritchie Industries (here in Iowa), but learned while it is EXACTLY what we need, the price was way more than I expected. I am going to talk to the local distributor to see if I can get some sort of "trade-in"/loaner or sponsorship for it. I will really only have this large a need for about 15 months (or so).

Day three has gone well otherwise. :) Anyone (especially fence builders :) LOL ..JK)seriously wanting to help, please PM me.

This made me LOL!!! I agree with everyone else--you are AMAZING!

Two words: Pet Butler. My husband got me this as a "going away" present when he deployed and I LOVE IT! I have not had to scoop poop since June and it is a god send. With the allotment, it might be affordable.

I am truly touched that someone would do this--thank you!

Hey sage, how about setting up a paypal account (with an anonymous email address so you can still protect your identity) that people can send monetary donations to? Would that work? I don't know all the ins & outs of paypal...

I do have a paypal account.

PM me for any additional information.

I don't think there is anything wrong with Pedigree.

edit to add-are the dogs chipped in case they get out? And if so since their mom is out of the country I would call the chip company and have the number changed to you. I see lost dogs and cats all the time and with no chip and unfortunately I have to send them to the shelter which makes me sad.

SageofAges -

I have never heard of this program, but Thank you for doing this and I know our servicemen/women appreciate this type of support!

Please share pictures of your foster (and current) furbabies

One of the requirements is that the dogs are microchipped. We have sent the change of emergency contact in already. Yes ;).

I have a myspace set up. I still have to add some photos later today (gotta take some first).

myspace.com/happyanddopey

The myspace could be a good way for "mom" to keep up with them too!

What a cool program! Thank you for doing this :)