Shelter in Your Place
At the first opportunity, Princess thrust herself out of the car window and broke into a sprint. Becca Elizabeth had no time to think. Elizabeth lunged out of her car and chased after the foster dog that she picked up from Dallas Animal Services less than two hours ago.
“Apparently it was the fastest I’ve ever run, it honestly was.” Elizabeth said, who eventually cornered Princess in a Target parking lot and brought her safely home. “So yeah, she bolted. And that’s when I named her Nervous Nelly.”
Elizabeth was a first-time foster parent, but even a more experienced volunteer would have found Nelly (née Princess) a difficult dog. Upon arriving in Elizabeth’s apartment, Nelly didn’t move for the “entire first 24 hours,” and for the next three days would have to be carried up and down the stairs for walks. She was terrified of nearly everyone and everything.
“She didn’t even like treats the first week I had her, she was just, like, terrified,” Elizabeth said. “This happens to fosters and it’s so sad, but the dog doesn’t know you and doesn’t know that you’re a good thing.”
In the midst of self-isolation and COVID-19, the Dallas foster community has come together for hundreds of other animals in need.
When Dallas first announced citywide closure of nonessential businesses and shelter-in-place orders, the Dallas Animal Services (DAS) worried about the hundreds of animals that would no longer receive visitors and potential adopters. Already one of the largest shelters in the country, the DAS would have to begin euthanizing animals to make space for the steady flow of animals that arrive in their care whether or not a pandemic is raging across the country.
But within the first week of sending out notices to the Dallas community, they were met with a surge of adoptees and fosters. From their initial plea on March 13 to 23, the DAS placed 149 dogs in foster care where they only placed 10 dogs over the same period last year.
Katrina Connor was one of the many working professionals in Dallas and across the United States who suddenly found themselves with the time and space to bring a dog into their home. Connor’s foster dog, Reese’s, would end up being as positive an addition to her home as Connor’s presence in Reese’s life.
Connor’s outgoing friendliness is tangible even through a faceless voice call. Before quarantine, the self-described extrovert had an active social life: she would “go to the bar”, “work every day”, was in “four book clubs” and “was always seeing friends.” No aspect of Connor’s personality was made for quarantine.
“It was really, it was really hard,” Connor said. “I just felt lonely and distant and overwhelmed by how many other problems were happening in the world…I didn’t feel like I had the inner capacity to do anything.”
That all changed with Reese’s. The three-year-old pup brought solace and structure back into Connor’s life.
“She is so sweet, I feel like I’ve gotten spoiled,” Connor gushed. “Just having her around has given me someone to talk to in my apartment, and she has motivated me to get out of the house so I’m walking every day, which has really helped just refocus me. I’m more attentive to work and just life in general. And plus, I mean, I think the thing that I didn’t expect to be so helpful, is having something to talk about…when my parents call or when friends call, I have a dog to talk about! I can be excited about that. And that has been so much better than, like, just talking about quarantine all the time.”
For the millions of people now isolated at home, the companionship and responsibility of a pet have proven to be welcome relief from the virus’s invasion of seemingly all other aspects of life. But besides giving animals a space to relax and come into their own, the most important role a foster can play in an animal’s life is that of a liaison between the animal and a forever home. Visit any online foster volunteer group on Facebook, and you will find hundreds of volunteers actively promoting their animals for adoption as well as advice and opportunities to best care for them.
SMU student Avery Cooper adopted her second cat, Hartley, two weeks ago from the same foster with whom she adopted her first cat, Scarlet. For potential adopters like Cooper, there’s no better time to welcome a new member of the family.
Scarlet and Hartley “have been able to bond with each other and become friends even more quickly and smoothly because I’ve been around with them nonstop,” Cooper said. “I am a firm believer in adopting. And I love adopting from fosters rather than shelters…They’ve had these animals for usually a while, and they’re able to tell me a little bit more about their personalities and their characteristics so I could figure out which animal would be the best sibling for the cat that I already had.”
Former SMU student and equestrian team member Casey Bibbs has been fostering animals with DAS and the Carrollton-based no-kill shelter Operation Kindness well before quarantine. Bibbs estimates that she has fostered 13 dogs and over 20 cats since she began volunteering 3 years ago. Having grown up around horses, dogs, cats and “all kinds” of animals, Bibbs had “always wanted animals” but between living in the dorms, work and travel, was never in the right circumstances to permanently adopt.
“It’s a way for me to not have an animal during certain times of the year, but still get my animal fix,” Bibbs said. “[Letting the animals go] it’s not the easiest thing in the world, but I was really good about knowing, like, ‘Hey, this is a foster dog.’”
Many animals have found temporary or permanent homes thanks to the coronavirus, but Bibbs reminds other fosters and adopters during this time to “just make sure you have a plan for [a] non-Coronavirus situation, because it’s not going to be here forever.” Once pandemic restrictions loosen, there may be less available fosters and adopters, but there are still options that allow people to care for animals on a flexible schedule such as the DAS’s Doggy Daycation and D90 Runners programs.
“I feel that the most important thing we can do for dogs right now is connect them to forever homes,” Elizabeth said. “The thing that looms in the back of my mind is I don’t want this to end and 200 dogs to be returned to Dallas Animal Services because they were never put up for adoption or advertised because someone wanted, like, a buddy for quarantine…I don’t want people’s need for companionship to overshadow the dog’s need for a lasting solution.”
Adoption is the ideal “lasting solution”, but the temporary relief that the foster community provides to animals and other fosters remains invaluable.
“After reaching out to other fosters, I’m really thankful for people who are experienced in rescue because rescuing a dog [like Nelly] that is that scared is so scary and so, like, not rewarding at times,” Elizabeth explained. “People were really kind to me. I kept her for three weeks and she started opening up”
After three weeks, Elizabeth decided to sign Nelly up for a transport to Illinois, where less crowded shelters and a relatively higher demand for animals would increase her chances of finding a permanent home.
Within two weeks, Nelly was adopted.
“Her adopter found me on Facebook…she just sent me a video today of Nelly running around her backyard and exploring and being really happy and bouncy. It’s the happiest I’ve ever seen that dog,” Elizabeth said. “There was nothing more rewarding than seeing that change… I feel that dogs just need a platform to shine. I think I had the understanding that dogs in foster were in foster because they were bad dogs. And I think that now I understand that dogs in foster are there either because their foster wants them there or because they just needed a space to open up.”
For both the animals and fosters like Elizabeth, the positive impact of their roles will last far beyond the pandemic.
“I also think that it’s just, it’s really opened my eyes to the way people are like social and not social with each other,” Elizabeth said. “During this time when I walk around without a dog, it’s just, like, averted eyes and fear and mistrust. And I think that people who have dogs and being able to talk and say like, ‘Yes, I am fostering, I’m one of the people fostering, here she is, here’s her story,’ it’s really giving people an opportunity to engage with me and engage with others at the length of a six foot leash.”
