It began like the rest. My daughter texted me a link to a Lucky Dog in boarding that needed a foster family. The link was for a young guy named Russell. He was some crazy mix of boxer and a dozen other things. His head and paws were too big for his body. His ears stuck straight up with one flopped forward and the other flopped back. Russell was the epitome of a pound puppy. 

My daughter and I team-foster so that between the two of us we can provide our foster dogs a lot of human time, and get to all the adoption events. I always feel some anxiety when getting a new foster dog. You just don’t know what they’re going to be like. Although it has never happened, I always worry that the new one will be the one that leaves me an exhausted shell of a human. Yet my daughter is always successful in getting me on board with taking on a new foster.

Well, Russell turned out to be a little angel, just like all the previous foster dogs. He was confident, smart and super friendly. There wasn’t a dog, cat, or person that he didn’t love. Russell also checked off the most important item I hope for as a foster parent… he already knew that outside, not inside, was the potty place. Hooray!

It was Thanksgiving so my son and his girlfriend were visiting. They got to meet Russell and it was love at first sight. The next thing I knew they were talking about adopting him. Wait! What? They had planned on taking one of our cats back with them – but the little boy had won their hearts.

They live in New York City so we were unsure how the adoption process could work, yet love conquers all. They submitted their application, got approval from their landlord, got approval from Lucky Dog, and then came all the way back to Virginia the next weekend just to pick up their boy. Russell has taken a more appropriate name for life in the Big Apple - Gus.

Seeing a foster dog go to its forever home is always emotional, but with Gus he’ll always be part of the family! (Oh, yea and the cat is fine with staying in Virginia.)