Fostering Compassion: Opening your heart and home to senior dogs
As a way to honoring our senior dog's positive influence over us, we'll be sharing on Grouchy Puppy beautiful images and stories involving the relationship between people and their older dogs, from Project Unconditional.
Read this story about a wonderful family who opens their hearts and home to frightened older dogs. They offer compassion and love to those who need it the most, senior dogs looking for a forever family.
Fostering Compassion
Photographed here with their senior rescues Stella (11, French bulldog), Roxy (11, Chihuahua-Dachshund-mix), and Cocoa (10+, Chihuahua-mix), Joe and Rafael introduced me to Patty Stanton and my new friends at Muttville Senior Dog Rescue in San Francisco.
Joe and Rafael’s first senior foster dog was named Misty Kay Maybelline. She was, as Joe describes, “odd looking,” but they quickly fell in love with this “cranky old lady.” Misty Kay became a permanent member of the family until she passed away three years later, and during that time many more dogs came and went from their home.
Over the past few years, Joe and Rafael have fostered around thirty senior dogs in need. Theirs is a safe and caring home for senior dogs in a moment of difficult transition. “Saying goodbye to our foster dogs is always bittersweet,” Joe says, “and although we miss every single one of them, the need is too great not to continue. So with a heavy heart we say goodbye, wipe the tears away, and then say hello to the next frightened dog.”
Visit Project Unconditional for more photographs and information, and keep up with the project on Facebook.