Johnny & June

We are foster parents again.  This time we are temporarily housing two eight week old hound puppies.  The semi-local no kill shelter was contacted by a kill shelter in a neighboring county about taking in 34 puppies who were on death row, and sent out a plea for foster homes.

The no kill shelter was able to take all 34 puppies, but only if they could find foster homes for two weeks for all of them.  They were out of room themselves, and don’t typically keep puppies that haven’t been through all of their vaccines in the shelter. 

This is our first time fostering puppies.  We typically prefer older dogs or cats, but looking at the puppies’ sweet little faces and knowing that stepping up was literally the difference between whether they would live or die made us take the leap into fostering puppies.  We reasoned that it’s only a two week commitment.  Two weeks of something new and different for us really isn’t much compared to saving their lives. 

All 34 puppies arrived at the no kill shelter at 3:00 on Tuesday afternoon, and were all parceled out to their various foster homes by 7:30 that evening.  Some brave souls took groups of four puppies. 

Johnny and June weren’t named at the shelter.  They were the last two hound puppies in a carrier, so were sent with me for convenience sake as we hadn’t spoken up for specific puppies, just agreed to take two.  The foster coordinator told me we could name them.  It’s about a 45 minute drive home from the shelter, and the only time they stopped crying in the car was when country music was playing, especially anything old school.  At that point I had to name them Johnny and June! 

Johnny and June have to remain separated from Emma, and cannot go outside at all due to their age, coming from the first shelter, and vaccine status.  We have the puppy crate in the added on room because that’s the best place to keep anyone separated from the other fur kids.  It has changed up our routine a little bit, but so far it hasn’t been terrible.  It is more work having them around, but it seems to be worth it. 

Caring for them seems to mostly consist of constantly changing out the newspaper and cleaning their crate.  It also appears that they’re going to need near daily baths.  They are very loud when they want attention, but they play with each other and they sleep a lot.  They’re beginning to discover toys, which is fun to watch, and they seem to be developing their own little personalities.  June is feistier and wants to play and chew on things.  Johnny is cuddlier and wants to be held and petted. 

I’ve been told that they will likely end up on the northern transport program since hounds are usually adopted very quickly that way.  It’s just nice to be a very small part of that, and to know that soon they’re going to have their forever home(s).