Saving Animals wi BY TIFFANY HUGHES
Above, Tiffany and her husband decided to adopt Harley, after seeing this photo of her playing with a dog at her foster home. Right, Baby Kitty and Jasper alert Tiffany when her blood sugar dips too low.
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AROUND KENNESAW | August 2021
Have you ever wondered why there are so many posts from shelters and rescue groups on social media, begging for foster homes? The short answer is space. Rescues usually pull from high-kill shelters. For every animal placed in a foster home and/or adopted from a rescue, a space opens for another animal to be saved. Fostering isn’t a commitment to adopt, it’s a commitment to help right now. Fostering means letting the animal live in your home, and treating it like one of your pets. Placing rescued animals in a foster home ensures the animal will be cared for until it is adopted. Seeing how a pet behaves in a home, rather than a shelter, is invaluable information for future adoptive families. When fostering, it’s important to take good, clear photos of the pet, and notes about the animal’s behavior, which are used on the facility’s website listing the animal for adoption. Ten years ago, my husband and I were looking for a kitten that would be good with our two dogs. We found the rescue group Forgotten Paws, which had a kitten named Harley living in a foster home with dogs. Foster homes can help animals with medical conditions, such as a diabetic cat or a dog that needs a special diet. Some families foster senior dogs, who can have medical issues as well, allowing them to spend the last stages of their lives with a loving family. Fostering also saves human lives. My foster baby literally came to my rescue. We had just taken in a 6-month-old puggle (pug/Jack Russell terrier mix) to foster. We already had his brother. Within a week of his arrival, we noticed that Jasper not only detected my low blood sugars at night (I’m a Type 1 diabetic), but he would jump on me to wake me up, then jump off the bed and herd me into the closet where I kept my supplies. He would pay special attention to me when my husband traveled overnight. We wasted no time in adopting him and his brother. Eight years later, Jasper has saved me more times than I can count, when my blood sugar dropped so dangerously low that I could barely function. In the depths of my haze, I instinctively followed Jasper’s lead and get food or drink to raise my blood sugar. Having a furbaby who can do this with no training is a blessing. But it’s nothing short of a
