Hello and welcome.
We are here to share the adventures that come with fostering pit bull type dogs. Many may end up at our doorstep having gone through more that we can imagine. For one dog at a time, we offer our home as a rest stop to those that need a bit of time, love and patience so that they may finish life happy and healthy at their forever home. So here we are, Between Trains.
Our Pack
We are a young, dare I say, newlywed, couple that wishes we could make a living by staying at home and playing with dogs all day, but alas we make our money in DC and receive the looks of amazement when we tell our co-workers that we live outside of Frederick, MD on two acres with four dogs.
Ernie
Ernie is our first dog together. We adopted him from Wayside Waifs in Kansas City, Mo. Ernie was found as a stray in Tennessee and was taken to the local animal shelter. The staff did everything they could to find Ernie’s home, but his time was running out. Luckily for Ernie Petsmart Rescue Waggin saved him. He “took the ride of his life” and just a day after he arrived at Wayside, Phil and I adopted him. Ernie has the wonderful playful personality of a beagle.
Joyful Ernie
Copper
Copper was our first foster, I guess you could say we failed, but I say he was our dog from the beginning. As easy as Ernie was, Copper taught us the patience that comes with owning a dog. He counter surfs, is leash reactive, and is way too smart for his own good. I had no idea that dogs could figure out how to unzip duffel bags! We constantly have to find things for him to occupy his mind. What better way than two acres for a hound? With all the challenges, Copper loves to cuddle, play, and best of all, he loves other dogs. Copper is enjoying this fostering thing more than anyone.
Goofy Copper
Olivia
Or Olive, as we affectionately called her. Where do we start? Olive was only in our life for a year and a half, but what a time it was. We went to a Petsmart conference for Ernie and received a lot of goodies. Ernie, being the amazing boy that he is, suggested that we take it to the Kansas City animal shelter, where the dogs didn’t have too much. We go to drop off a donation and we met Olive. She just wiggled like I have never seen a dog wiggle before. We laughed at her, but went home. Days later we still couldn’t keep her off our minds, so we called and asked what her story was.
She was a backyard breeding dog, when animal control found out they told her family they can pay $15 to get her spayed and they could have her back. “What is the use of having her then?” and they just left her in the shelter. We hear about that all too often. (The only dogs that are required by law to be spayed or neutered are pit bull type dogs in Kansas City, a law I would like to see extended to all breeds, if the procedure stays at $15). Well, we get a call from Copper’s rescue, Western Missouri Basset Rescue, and he has an application and it is between him and one other dog. We thought for sure they would choose Copper and we put our application in for Olivia and before we know it we have 3 dogs! (That’ll teach us!!)
Olive came to us heart worm positive, with kennel cough, and just got through getting spayed. Needless to say, our $95 dog cost us over $2,000 before we even got her home. She was a pleasure though, after two weeks of crate and rotate, Olive just loved her brothers. Whenever they came in from another room her tail would go a hundred miles an hour and she gave them kisses. Olive turned everyone she met from pit bull haters to pit bull lovers. She acted as a therapy dog for our neighbor who had MS and was amazing with all of our neighborhood kids. She was one of those dog that just made you smile when you looked at her. She is missed everyday.
Beautiful Olive
Tilly
Because of Olive, we are now suckers for pit bull type dogs and when the time was right we brought home Tilly. Tilly came in as an owner surrender from MCHS after being hit by a car (2nd time in her life). Everything about Tilly is just tiny and adorable, except her personality, that is BIG. We could have a blog dedicated to all things Tilly. She came to us a nervous, anxious, unsocialized mess but she is now a little heart breaker. We put her in nose works to build her confidence and even though she still has improvements to make she is our little Tilly Bean and we couldn’t be more proud of her. Tilly is dog reactive, so we will be working on slow introductions with all of our fosters.
Our Tilly Bean
Our Fosters
We are new at this and Ozzie will be our first foster. We will learn with him. As he learns to live comfortably in a house, we will learn how to be smart foster parents. There are of course good days and bad ones, but that is the truth in all areas of life. All we can do is offer everything we can to our four dogs everyday. We are excited to be sharing this experience with you.
The Oz Man
contact us: waitingbetweentrains [at] gmail [dot] com
