Who's Your Daddy?

 

I'm a terrible foster daddy. The whole idea of fostering animals from rescue groups and shelters, is to not get attached. The idea is to give the pet a loving and healthy place to live until a forever home can be found. I failed on my first official try at fostering. I have taken in stray and unwanted animals before. Cats that tenants and neighbors have left behind. I never could find homes for them, so I ended up with a lot of cats over the course of forty years. Did I mention that I'm allergic to cats? Then there are the dogs. I've taken in unwanted dogs a few times, but other than Sasha, our first schnauzer, I did find homes for them. Including a three legged dog named Tuffy. Can you believe that? I found a home for Tuffy the three legged dog. My nephew, I gave Tuffy to my nephew.

Back in early February I chauffeured an adorable little dog out to Batavia, or it may have been West Chicago, I forget. I did that for Cairn Terrier Rescue, the group that gave me Scout. On that short ride to the suburbs I fell in love with that little dog. Sadly, he was going out there to have his leg amputated. His name was Bucky and he had cancer. This was all explained to me up front. A month later I volunteered to foster Bucky while he had treatments in Chicago for his cancer. He became the star of my block. Everybody up and down the street got to know Bucky in a short while, including my neighbor who has the hair salon on the corner. She would cook up sweet potatoes for Bucky and trim the hair around his eyes while human patrons of the salon sat and watched.

Bucky and I connected immediately. He also won over Scout. He took over her bed. She didn't care. He ate next to her, drank out of the same bowl, she didn't care. Like I said, I was a bad foster father to Bucky. I fell in love with that little guy and became his good daddy instead, until the end. That was yesterday.