A Gremlin in the house

Say you're an animal lover. Now say that you've also got a busy lifestyle and you're unsure about your ability to commit to one animal forever.

There's an option that's out there and it might just be the perfect thing for you and a dog, or a cat, or a rabbit or hamster.

Fostering.

Foster homes are a vital resource to providing love and care for animals on their way to finding their permanent families. Just ask Geneieve Horvath who has been involved with the Northern Alberta Society for Animal Protection (NASAP) for 12 years and has been president for the last decade.

"Our foster homes are our last line of defence for our animals. They're invaluable. Without foster homes, we wouldn't exist, not without people willing to open up their homes and their hearts to an animal that they're not necessarily going to know how it's going to behave in their home, but they're willing to take that chance to help through the transition of finding its forever loving home," she said.

She originally became involved because she was volunteering at the Edmonton Humane Society and wanted to do more. She researched rescue operations and chose NASAP because of its professionalism and dedication to the cause.

The organization is a non-profit rescue agency with a team of veterinarians including animal behaviouralists along with a retinue of dedicated animal lovers who are committed to the well being of animals.

Fur the love of a good friend

She herself is so committed that she has five animals – "all foster failures," she joked, meaning she just couldn't give them up once she had them in her home.

A good foster home is a place with more than just love and a fenced yard for that dog to get its fresh air and lawn to stretch its legs. The foster family needs to have a lot of patience, understanding and compassion. "You know what? That puppy is going to pee on your floor. That kitty may pee outside the litter box. I should say that you have to have hardwood floors!" she joked.

As an aside, she noted that she does have steam cleaners at the office for the foster homes to borrow.

NASAP has seen more cats than dogs come through its virtual doors over the last few years. Horvath added that the one thing that she has noticed that has changed over the last 12 years is that the number of rescues has tripled.

According to its website at www.nasap.ca, the organization exists to "provide a solution to the problem of homeless and unwanted animals in Northern Alberta, thus working towards the long term goal of reducing the practice of euthanasia as a means of controlling the pet population.

It offers a lot of support for its animals' foster families including veterinarians and animal behaviouralists, along with providing all of the food and any equipment or special treatments that the animal requires.

Meet Gremlin

Frequent visitors to the Gazette's Adopt-A-Pet page are probably familiar with the friendly face of Gremlin, a three-year-old Rottweiler-Blue Heeler cross that has been featured numerous times over the last year or so.

There's a reason why Gremlin's face is so friendly. As far as I'm concerned, she's a pure delight, especially after living in Cherise Frederick's foster home since early 2015. Frederick has spent a good deal of time and energy into training and rehabilitating the young dog that previously went through a good handful of homes and abandonments that first started when she was barely six months old in Athabasca.

What Gremlin really needed was someone who cared, and that's exactly what she's got right now in her foster home.

"As soon as I got her from the pound, she was completely bonded to me. She followed me everywhere; she was basically attached," Frederick said.

Gremlin is not just photogenic but is very well behaved also, even respecting the behavioural and invisible physical boundaries that the cat of the house has dictated. She'll whimper until she's invited into the cat's room, for instance.

She is the eighth dog that Frederick has fostered while Willow, the other Rottweiler cross in the house, was the third. Together, the two pooches get along swimmingly, although there are still some behavioural issues involving play fighting that have to be watched for.

Otherwise, she's gentle but enthusiastic, gives lots of kisses, is very friendly and is affectionate, and is very, very playful.

"She has definitely come a long way!" Frederick said, noting that there were a lot of trust and confidence issues that had to be worked through. "It's been a long process."

She sees Gremlin's ideal forever home as a small to medium acreage without small children but with someone who wants a companion dog. "Small kids don't know what to do with her and she doesn't know quite what to do with them either. She wants to herd them."

Her future home should be with someone who is patient, understanding, confident, and has experience dealing with dominant dogs. That person should be confident, firm but gentle, and full of love.

Oh, and that person should be really active because the dog is full of energy, loves to run, and gets a three-km walk twice a day. "That's a warm-up for her."

Gremlin has had a few health issues, some of which still require medication and a special diet. She experiences urinary leakage, which is really just another way of saying that sometimes she stands up from sitting and there's a little puddle left underneath. It's a symptom that has arisen because of how young she was when she was spayed, Frederick speculated.

"There's nothing she can do about it."

Apart from all that, getting to know Gremlin might take more than one visit, she said. It's going to be a slow process with her, Frederick ended, saying, "You need to let her warm up and she'll show you different layers. Take a chance on her. It took a good three or four months before she truly warmed up to me."

In other words, Gremlin is an investment dog and with some great long-term payoffs.

What fosters a fosterer?

Frederick said that she chose to become a foster home after learning that a friend of hers had been fostering a cat. There was a really cute little puppy that she was going to adopt at one point but considered her job and life circumstances first. So she decided to foster as a way of doing a trial period of having a dog in her busy house.

She admitted that the first few puppies that she took in "almost did her in" because she didn't really know what she had gotten herself into. Puppies are demanding while Gremlin and Willow are "overgrown toddlers," she said affectionately.

Typically, a dog is only in foster care from two to six weeks. Gremlin is a rare case for being on the waiting list for so long but that's just because she needs to find just the right family.

Jocelyn (she asked for us not to use her last name) said she too has caught the fostering bug, having fostered mostly cats for five or six years, including several moms with their litters.

She has even had some guinea pigs. "They're pretty fun. You can foster anything," she said. In fact, there's a rabbit that's up for fostering on NASAP's site.

"I recognize that there's limitations on the number of pets that I can take care of or commit to long-term but being able to have one short-term in the house that I can help out on their transition to a forever home makes me feel good," she explained.

Currently, Jocelyn has a menagerie of two dogs, three cats in her care in addition to her own two guinea pigs. They all get along just fine, she pointed out, but mom cats with their litters do get the privilege of their own rooms until they can integrate into the rest of the household.

Whatever compels someone to choose to host a halfway house for these wayward pets, there is a lot of good that can be accomplished to helping them find their forever homes. And it feels good too, Horvath stated.

"The one thing that I stand by with rescuing is that it's food for the soul. Nothing compares when you rescue an animal. It's been food for my soul for the last 12 years. That's why I continue to do it."

She ended by saying that the important thing is to make sure that people in the market for a house pet should adopt. "Don't shop. Find a reputable rescue," she emphasized.