We love dogs around here, as my long-time readers already know. Well, Sarah says two things quite frequently—”mama” (which can mean me, or just that she’s unhappy about something and the status quo needs to change), and “woof woof” when she sees a puppy dog! (Actually, she seems to think ALL animals say “woof woof,” but we’ll get that straightened out later.)

This isn’t the best, but you can kind of hear her saying it if you turn up the volume:

And in other dog news… do you remember “Pound Puppies”? Well, I didn’t have those. :) I had the “Kennel Kuddles” from Wal-Mart, and they were great. I kept them, and I just put together a little puppy playset for the girls. There are some baby washcloths for blankets, some silver condiment cups for food bowls, a baby hair brush, and a doctor kit to play “vet.”

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This year, we were prepared with proper snowsuit and boots! Our friend Emily, who has outfitted Anna with numerous bags of clothes after her 3 girls have finished with them, gave us the snowsuit. My mom got Anna the boots yesterday at Wal-Mart. Yeah, with everyone else who was buying milk and bread. I hope it wasn’t too crazy. :)

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We have two new additions to our family! Meet Sydney:

And Lexi:

After fostering Bailey for about 6 months and sending him off to his forever home, we decided that we were ready for some dogs of our own again. We wanted two dogs, young adults, small to medium size, who played well together. We told Donna from All About Labs, the rescue we have worked with, what we would be looking for. A few weeks ago, she called us with some information about these girls. They were found as strays (probably dumped) in rural Arkansas by a woman and her family who were attending a family reunion at some cabins. They brought them home, had them vetted, and attempted to find them a home together, preferably locally. A friend of theirs put them in touch with Donna so AAL could help get them adopted out, and Donna immediately thought of us. They came up for a visit a few days later, and we were sold! We had to wait until the loud, messy part of the kitchen work was done first, but we’re at a point now where it’s not too chaotic, so it was time to bring them home.

Their foster family took wonderful care of them. They had them spayed and vaccinated, fed them good quality food, crate-trained them, and treated them as part of their family (which includes 2 other dogs!). They said we were their Conway twins—the husband works from home, the wife is a stay-at-home mom, and they have a 2-year-old daughter. They even use the same dog food that we do, which is kind of an unusual one! We told them to come visit whenever they wanted to see how their girls were doing.

I really didn’t get very many good pictures today, but I’ll try to post some more in the near future. (It’s getting a little hard to get down on the floor and move around quickly enough to get the perfect shot!)

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In just a little over a year, we’ve had to say goodbye to three dogs. First, we lost our precious Sasha to cancer. Then, we were fostering Russ through his heartworm treatment, and we lost him to distemper.

This past Thursday, we said goodbye to the third, but under a much different set of circumstances. Our foster dog Bailey found a new home up in New Jersey, so we went down to Little Rock to see him off on the P.E.T.S. transport that will deliver him and about a hundred other dogs from the South to their new homes in the Northeast, which they do every week. (They currently have an 8-week show on Animal Planet, airing on Saturday nights.)

It was hard to say goodbye and we will miss him greatly, but fostering all the way through to the send-off is rewarding as well. He arrived today, and his new mom wrote how much they adore him and how much sweeter he is than they ever could have imagined. She thanked us for loving him and taking care of him until he could be theirs. They have been counting down the days until he would arrive! Fostering definitely fills a need in the animal rescue world. We are honored to have been a part of Bailey’s story, and we hope to do it again in the future (after we have our own dog(s), according to David—he says he can’t do this again unless he has a dog to come home to!)

Here are few pics from send-off day:

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Bailey has been adopted! After 6+ months with us as our foster dog through All About Labs, he is going to join a couple in Hoboken, NJ who want to make him part of their family. He’ll head off on the doggie bus on June 24 and arrive two days later. The woman owns her own business and will take Bailey to work with her. They also live close to a dog park, so he should get the chance to play with some other dogs.

We have mixed feelings about this, of course, but I suppose all foster parents do. We’ve loved him, taken care of him, and integrated him into our family, all the while knowing that we would be sending him off when the time is right. Anna loves him, and I know she’ll be asking about him for a while, but I think she’s young enough that she’ll transition fine to another dog when we foster or adopt again.

So we’ve got another week and a half to love on him, play with him, and get ourselves ready for the big day.

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You think our Bailey-boy needs a little white basket with pink gingham lining? He seems to have taken a liking to my parents’ Poms’ basket. I told him it was kind of a girly basket, but he doesn’t seem to care. :)

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Ok, I finally let Anna go out and play in the snow. It’s cold, wet, and messy. I don’t like cold, wet, and messy. But I eventually felt guilty enough about ALL the other kids except Anna playing in the snow; I knew she would love it, and she did! So did Bailey—he ran around and frolicked in it, and Anna got a big kick out of him.

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This is the first in a series of posts to remedy the “I haven’t really blogged in a while” problem. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather read several short posts than one long one, so I’ll break it up.

Back in November we were driving home from a workday at the All About Labs ranch, which is the dog rescue we’ve been involved with for the past several months. We came around a bend, and there they were—two stray dogs roaming the highway. They know who to find, don’t they? One of the dogs we couldn’t catch, and we think he may belong to a house that was nearby. The other… well, we are now the proud foster parents of “Beagle Bailey,” which you already know if you read David’s blog. He cleaned up pretty well and is a very handsome fellow! We didn’t find any advertisements for a lost dog of his description in the papers or on Petfinder classifieds. He has now been neutered, vaccinated, microchipped, and listed on Petfinder, so hopefully he will find a forever home soon.

Bailey and Anna get along great. She calls him “Bay-bee” and likes to feed him his treats, give him his toys, etc. She’ll get down on the floor and stick her head right under his face, trying to get him to lick her; he usually obliges, and she giggles. We briefly considered keeping him, and it will be hard to let him go, but we think it is the right thing to do. We really need to have one good dog fostering experience that ends the way it should. And there are lots of people who place importance on having a pure-bred dog, and we don’t, so he’ll be a great match for someone who specifically wants a beagle.

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Sunday before last, we went down to the All About Labs ranch for a workday. Well, David worked, and I took pictures. :)

I’m leading with my favorite shot, just in case you get bored and don’t look at all these.

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I’m so excited! We finally got the camera I’ve been wanting for a long time, thanks to God’s amazing blessings and David’s patience in deal-watching. I’ve enjoyed taking pictures the past few days and not having my child run out of the frame between the time I push the button and the time it takes the picture!

One of the things I’ve been eager to do as soon as we got a good camera is take good pictures of rescue dogs for their adoption pages. It combines the passion we have for animal welfare with the desire to use what God has given us to bless others. Even though I’ve barely scratched the surface of the camera manual, I just couldn’t wait to start practicing taking pictures of dogs. So on Saturday morning we loaded up the car and headed down to the All About Labs ranch. (You may remember that All About Labs is one of the rescues that helped us save the abandoned dogs this past spring, and the rescue we were fostering Russ for.)

So I was using the “Creative Auto” setting, which gives me a little bit of exposure control but still does most of the work. I think Saturday was more about getting used to photographing large, excited, rambunctious dogs that wanted to get right in my face than learning how to use the camera settings. I’ll work on that for next time.

And I should add that Anna did great around those big dogs, and they did great around her as well. They would run up to us and jump on us, but they would run up to her and just stop. It’s amazing how many dogs instinctively know to be gentle around a child. Anna giggled as they sniffed her and ran all around her and wasn’t the least bit afraid them!

So here are a few of my favorites:

This is actually one of the pups from Rescue #2. He’s grown!

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