Becoming Foster Parents to Puppies

This week has been a daze. Thursday as I was getting up I thought I heard an animal crying. It turns out the cry I was hearing was not one cry, but the cry of 6 abandoned puppies behind our house. The puppies were left in a box with a carton of milk. This week I ask you please excuse any incoherent parts of this post as my sleep is limited and my short term memory is almost non existent.

The big question is what do we do with them? We can't keep them all. There really aren't any shelters in Panama and the veterinarian informed me that the dogs were not very healthy so they need to have somebody to look after them.

The puppies pre-vetrerinarian visit

Right now we are agreeing to nurse them back to health for two weeks before adopting them out. The plan is to get the word out about the dogs via word of mouth and the internet.

The veterinarian said she believes the pups are between 6-8 weeks old. They seem very smart since they have only messed their sleeping bin twice (one time was our fault) and will cry when they need go out. They are all smart curious little guys-actually only one is male, the others are all females. Aren't they adorable?

We haven't really named any of them and neither of us seemed to be too attached to any particular dog. They all have their own personalities which make them each quirky and cute. Although they are puppies, the fact that they are still babies is always present; one might cry if another dog take's a leaf from it and they all love sucking on one of our fingers or a sibling's foot when they fall asleep. I am not denying the potential to become attached to one or two of them by the time adoptions start occurring.

Our dogs seem to be a bit agitated, as much as I hate to admit it. Our little dog loves to be the center of attention while our bigger dog is more independent but can still be pretty loving at night-even if she is not like that all the time. We still try to make sure they get attention too and that they get a good daily walk. I am sure they are counting down the weeks until normalcy returns.

I honestly don't want the neighborhood to know we have picked up stray puppies since I do not want to make this a routine thing.  People have commented that the puppies are lucky to have us. While I am awful with accepting the compliment, to us taking the dogs in wasn't an option. We also feel that they are doing us a favor as much as we are them. I hope this will be the last litter we see in a while. In the mean time Robert and I will walk around like zombies (did I mention my short term memory is shot?) and enjoy the fact that we are doing something good for these little guys.