We don't often hear from the families of our fosters, so this was a special treat and made us so happy. Magnolia was and is one of a kind, and will always hold a special place in our hearts.
My husband and I received a lovely surprise text message from Magnolia's new family yesterday with these pictures. She is doing great and as you can tell, she is being spoiled like she deserves. We don't often hear from the families of our fosters, so this was a special treat and made us so happy. Magnolia was and is one of a kind, and will always hold a special place in our hearts.
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Magnolia has been adopted! Our hearts are so full, but our house feels so empty with her gone. There's a quietness that will take some time to readjust to.
I had some serious ugly crying going on when DDR came to get her. We are so thankful for all the lessons she taught us and all of the happy memories we made. I am proud that we were able to keep her out of the shelter for months and we worked so hard to prepare her for this next step. Is fostering hard? Absolutely! Is it worth every second? Absolutely! Magnolia has a meet and greet tomorrow with a potential adopter, so we are getting her extra clean and filing her nails nice so she looks and feels her best!
We are also soaking in all the last snuggles we can get. Maggie enjoyed a lazy weekend at the cabin. It was raining a lot, so we caught up on some much needed snuggling. She was pretty bummed walking down to the lake, only to find that it was frozen over. We've noticed that Maggie has a new little routine she has established on her own. She wakes up, goes to the bathroom, eats, and then hops back in our bed to snuggle in one of the warm spots. She is the queen of snuggling. She is still uncomfortable for long car rides, but she was a trooper, as always. She was able to curl up in the blue bed and relax for a bit on our drive home. Magnolia is one smart cookie! We've been working on this for months. At first she wouldn't even set a paw in the tunnel. With lots of treats and tennis balls, we made tunnel time a game and slowly worked up her confidence. Now she loves zooming in and out! We have seen this with Maggie before... overcoming her uncertainty of the stairs, the car, etc... in time we know she is capable of learning big things. She just needs a dedicated owner to help guide her. Recently, Maggie has discovered her intense love of belly rubs. She will hop up on my husband's lap and let him rub her tummy until she falls asleep.
Feeling bad that Magnolia hasn't had any time in the lake, baby pool, or with the sprinkler in months, so we improvised and made her a little indoor pool. Magnolia had a great first Christmas. She quickly learned how to open her presents and enjoyed some new toys. Magnolia, sweet little Maggie girl, is so special to us. Her kisses and snuggles are nice to come home to after a rough day.
She is the foster dog that we have had for the longest. I always like when our fosters get adopted quickly. The shorter they are with us, the less time I have to get attached. When you sign up to foster, you know saying goodbye is part of the deal, but it is still challenging to say goodbye to a little furfriend who has shared your home. As much as I want her to find a home soon, I am patient that we need to wait for the right home. I've communicated extensively with DDR's adoption coordinator, sharing what we've learned about Maggie along the way- her strengths, her quirks, her challenges... so they can pair her up with a perfect fit. We want her next adoption to be the final home she is in. In the meantime, we are trying hard to set her up for success. So although I was hopeful she would be in a new home for the holidays, she already has presents under the tree, just incase she is still here. The longer she is here, the more we get attached, but she is such a deserving dog and we will love and spoil her like our own until she leaves. We remind ourselves that as fosters, each day Magnolia is here is one day she didn't need to spend on the streets or in a shelter. And with each passing day she is here, she is one day closer to her new family. This girl just hopped in to our bed to say good night. She is such a little lover and is guaranteed to make her new family laugh.
Magnolia experiences motion sickness. We had a few car rides up north with Dramamine that helped, but overall, this hasn't been consistent. Sometimes it works, but most of the time it didn't. We reached out to DDR and they worked with their vets to prescribe Magnolia Cerenia. This medication did work, however, there are some parameters we found made our journey up to the cabin successful.
1) Cerenia must be given with a small amount of food 2 hours prior to travel, so planning ahead on car rides will be necessary. 2) One side effect of the medication is loose stools. The first time we tried the Cerenia, she did have an accident in the car as a result within the first half hour of the ride. On our next car trip, we experimented with stopping for a bathroom break about 25 minutes into the drive and this worked PERFECTLY! She had a bowel movement outside, and rested comfortable the rest of the ride home. So in a nutshell, we at least found a way that Maggie can travel without getting car sick! Yes, it will take planning to travel with her, but IT CAN BE DONE! YAY!!! Big break through!!! We continue to work hard on walks with Magnolia. We have made improvements and she will take treats and give us some of her attention. We have be doing short walks and keeping them positive. Sometimes on longer walks there is just too much stimulation with other dogs, squirrels, bunnies, and she gets over excited and her pulling and focus get worse. We've also experimented with a few different harness and collar combinations and the one pictured seems to be working best. She is a smart girl and even if a dog isn't out, she remembers where she saw a dog last time and we see her get a bit amped up in anticipation for the dog to possibly appear. We have some new meds to try for her motion sickness, so hopefully those will improve her ability to travel more comfortably so we can take her some new places to walk and explore. P.S. We think her little lower back spot is adorable. She loves getting pets there.
While we had a nice, sunny day, we decided to try some Halloween costumes on Maggie. Which is your favorite- Pumpkin, Gladiator Chariot, or Bunny?
Have you seen Magnolia's profile on the DDR site? I'm afraid when potential adopters see her "dog friendly" status, they will be deterred. Please let me explain.... When we first fostered Magnolia, we noticed some stress while on walks. When Magnolia saw or heard another dog, even from a few houses away, she would become very agitated. Barking, screeching, lunging, pulling. When returning for round two of fostering, we noticed some of these behaviors unfortunately were more intense. When she was in this agitated mode, there was no amount of sweet talk or treats to lure her attention back to us. Other stressors not helping her with this situation is that our neighbors have dogs that she does not like and they show aggression toward one another through the fence. We also had two walks in our neighborhood where people's dogs escaped their yards and came after us (not fun at all). All of this combined with who knows what she endured before arriving at DDR as a stray on the street, and the result is a very nice dog who reacts to other dogs in not pleasant ways. Is she scared? Frustrated? We aren't really sure. We quickly reached out to DDR when Magnolia returned to our care and weekly we have had a trainer come to the house to help us improve our training techniques so we can help Magnolia with some of these behaviors we were seeing. We have been working on LOTS of positive treat training and basic command training. We've brainstormed ways to drain her energy and give her enrichment opportunities. The good news is that we HAVE seen improvements. We have made big gains in her simply being able to take treats on walks. This doesn't sound like a big deal, but I can actually get her attention on walks! When she sees a dog now, she may still get worked up, but it isn't with the same intensity as it was before. She can hear a dog and instead of freaking out, she can turn to me and accept a treat. We work a lot in the yard or on short walks, just desensitizing her to the sounds and sights of other dogs. If she is too agitated, we move her away if we can. We've been keeping the training short and positive. I don't believe Magnolia will ever be that little puppy that walks up calmly to another dog with a wagging tail. She isn't even a year old yet and has had a rough start that no amount of training may ever be able to fully erase. We will keep working on her training because we are dedicated to finding her the best home and presenting to her new family the best version of Magnolia that we can. We love this spunky pup so much. The good news is, we know that Magnolia CAN exist with another dog, as she has been living with our dog, Jackie for about three months. Their first meeting wasn't perfect, and to be honest, most times when new fosters come, the initial meeting isn't smooth. There is a slow introduction process and some testing of boundaries. When Magnolia first came to our home, it took a good half hour walk just to get the girls to be somewhat calm near each other where they could walk on the side walk together. When Magnolia returned for round two of fostering, when we reintroduced the girls, there was some barking, a quick growl and some butt sniffs, but then they remembered each other, and they were fine. Below is a picture from Memorial Day weekend when we brought Magnolia to the family cabin. Prior to the visit, she was introduced to each dog. Initial meetings did not go smooth. Magnolia plays too rough for this crew of old gals, and she doesn't always pick up on social cues they give her to give them some space, so we kept a harness and leash on her for the weekend so if she did play too rough, we could safely get her away. I don't think Maggie is a perfect fit for every dog, but she has shown signs that she CAN get along with other dogs. Magnolia is going to be a dog who requires SLOW introductions, maybe even slow introductions over time. We love fostering Magnolia, but we know she isn't our furever dog because her energy level doesn't match that of our resident diva, Jackie. Jackie is VERY tolerant, and we have had other high energy fosters, but she is often annoyed with Magnolia's puppy antics. I would be curious to see how Magnolia does with another younger dog who can match her energy level. If you have another dog and are interested in Magnolia, I would encourage you still to reach out to DDR. They are always so helpful and can assist in a meeting to determine if Magnolia and your dog could be a good fit. I also think Magnolia would be ok her own. She loves loves loves people!!! She has lots of energy and without a furry playmate, she would need a dedicated owner to continue her training, give her walks, games of fetch, and other enrichment opportunities. She is so smart and quick to learn and she has a silly personality. After a long day in the crate, Magnolia LOVES outside time. She enjoys ice treats scattered throughout the yard so she can go on a scent hunt to find them. I'm very proud of her in this video for staying calm (and distracted) while another dog in the background is loudly barking. Magnolia experiences motion sickness. We have found ways to make it more manageable for her and us. She can still experience the joys of traveling, it just takes a little extra planning.
To start, we have made HUGE gains in just her comfort level in the car. When we first got Magnolia back in May, she wouldn't even go near the car. We would just park the car in the backyard and slowly condition her with treats that the car was a good place to be. Once we got her comfortable being in the car, once we actual drove her somewhere, we discovered she would get sick. Lots of trial and error (and paper towel and lysol wipes) later, we found that what helps her the most is limiting food before travel (at least 6 hours) and giving her a dose of Dramamine. We were referred to use this site for dosage recommendations. We have had car rides up to the cottage, about three hours away with only one barf, and we have even had a few rides were she has not gotten sick at all. Sometimes the stop and go of traffic can make this worse. When the ride first starts, she sometimes seems a bit uneasy, but once we get going steady on the highway, she usually curls up and sleeps. She likes looking out the window and sniffing through the top of a cracked window. (Note: she is an agile and curious girl, so don't roll down the windows too far) The morning I had to take her to the vet for her spay without Dramamine in her system, it was a barf fest the entire ride :( so the Dramamine definitely helps. For her future adopters, I'd encourage discussing this with your vet as they may be able to prescribe something for this condition. But for now, the Dramamine has been a game changer to help Maggie get out and explore the world. Hopefully she will outgrow this one day, but until she does, always keep a roll of paper towels in the car, just in case. No picture in this post, just an update on how we are progressing with walks.
Magnolia has not been the best walker since we began fostering her, but when she returned to us, she was extra challenging. We have noticed on walks she displays signs of dog aggression. Although she loves her foster sister, Jackie, when she sees or hears another dog, she gets agitated, will lunge, bark, growl, etc... We want Magnolia to be be her best version of herself for her next adopters, so we recruited the help of Kristen, from DDR, to help with some training. Kristen taught us that Maggie needs to be desensitized to the sound or presence of other dogs. Magnolia was found as a stray on the streets as a puppy, so who knows what this poor girl had to endure that might have made her feel nervous around other dogs. On walks, or anytime we are in the yard, we have been using lots of treats and positive reinforcement. When she hears another dog, I get her attention and give her a treat. We are trying to reprogram her little brain that dog barks aren't bad. We have been focusing on short walks and keeping them positive. We have seen some signs of progress (yay!) but she still has work to do. At least she will take treats on a walk now. Weeks ago, she was so alert and hyper-focused on other dogs, that nothing we did got her attention. Her acknowledging me and taking treats is a big sign of progress. I would strongly encourage any potential adopter to continue her training. She is such a smart and motivated girl, but she needs structure and support to help her overcome this challenge. |