Best Friend Part IV

I’m sitting here tapping the keys on the keyboard still, trying to figure out how segue into this next part. You know we brought home our first foster, it was at the end of my last post. Well, her name was Hershey and she changed our lives forever.

Hershey was about three years old when we fostered her. She was suffering from malnutrition and too much sun. Hershey’s a red dober girl, and although all Dobermans are sensitive, especially with their short hair, reds are even more sensitive and we believe she had been a “backyard dog”. Basically just abandoned in the back and/or left in a crate all day, she was just that unused to people and not “clingy/needy” like other Dobermans we’ve met.

It took probably three weeks for Hershey’s personality to start to come out. Meanwhile, you’ve met my other two best friends, Dare and Da’shain – we did what’s called a “slow intro” with my boys and Hershey. Succinctly put it means that they didn’t directly meet for a few days after we brought her into the house. They smelled her, and sniffed her, and saw her, and she them, but they didn’t interact.

This type of introduction may seem silly, but it’s the best thing that ever happened with Da’shain. Remember, how I explained he was very timid and slow to play with other dogs, and submissive? The intro gave him time to get used to the idea of another dog in the house and get used to Hershey specifically. It also gave Hershey a chance to calm down. She had been while a shelter before we got her, she was high strung, wanted to get out and run and play with my boys right away.  The few days separation really helped her get some energy out and not just jump into playing the first time we let them play together.

Hershey and the slow intro changed Da’shain’s life. When she was first at the house, he’d avoid her completely, to the point of walking around her area if he could and if she looked at him even while he was sitting down, he’d go into another room. That was in the first few days. Slowly, ever so slowly, this changed.

When they finally did meet, we made sure it was short, positive interactions that ended on a positive note. We also took them walking together so by the end of the walk Hershey wouldn’t even be interested in Da’shain and Da’shain wouldn’t be trying to get away from her. Anyone who met my dog before Hershey, wouldn’t recognize him now. By the time Hershey was adopted, she and Da’shain were best friends, to the point of playing chase/keep away around the house with Hershey’s favorite toy, a rope.

Hershey was in our lives for about five months and she was such an easy dog. I would tell her “go to bed” and she’d head from pretty much anywhere, to her crate. And if her crate door was mostly shut, she’d just nudge it open and go in (something my other dogs have yet to master). She knew sit and down and didn’t jump or counter surf. During my work day when I’d be at the front of the house in the office, she’d either lie under my desk (where I’d made a bed for my little dog, lol) or on the love seat in the living room. Barking at strangers walking by my window was never her thing – she reserved that job for our other dogs.

While Hershey and I never really clicked – I think it was because she wasn’t a needy or a clingy dog, or she was, but only in her own way. Our couches recline and when we’d have our feet up, she’d walk up to us and put her rear end right up against our feet, facing away from us. Almost as if she was verifying her people were still there, they weren’t going anywhere. Or the one time we didn’t have enough crates for a few days, and Hershey slept with us in the room, and ended up on the small of my back, just curled up in a ball. She loved sleeping in a ball, she was so tiny and petite she could make herself fit into any of Dare’s bed, and Dare’s a small bichon, but she’d curl up so tight you’d hardly notice.

Ironically, while I didn’t bawl when Hershey left us for her forever family, lately I really find myself missing her. Perhaps it’s that it’s been over a year now that she came into our lives. Perhaps it’s that after several other fosters I’m reminiscing about the one foster that we had who was actually, despite everything, pretty well adjusted.

Approximately two months after we took Hershey in, we volunteered to take in another, temporary foster. His name was Cash and he was a red, year and a half old, dober-boy. I remember the minute I pulled into the parking lot and saw him; I knew I could never give him up. You’ll have to wait for his story though; his intertwines for a bit with Hershey’s. The next post will be about our adventures with both of them together. My husband knew about the foster I was bringing home, this time, but what he didn’t expect was for me to get out of the car and say “baby, I can’t let this one go.”