Sunday, January 29, 2012

 Hey There!
My first weekend in my new foster home has been great.  My foster home loves how quiet I am in my crate.  I found something that I absolutely LOVE to do.... Eat snow!  When I go outside I run around, kick up snow, and then try to catch it and eat it. I am such a goofball.  Stay tuned for more pics and a update of my progress.

Echo

Friday, January 27, 2012

Well hey there! My name is Echo and this is my first day as a KAR foster dog! I am so happy to have the help of KAR to find my forever home! I am a total love bug and eager to please. Check back to find out more about me.

Happy news all! Rosie went to her new home today! This sweet gal is about to turn 1 in February and she is finally in her forever home! Many thanks to the amazing family that opened their hearts and home to her! 

How a foster found his forever home


This is a not so usual story about how a sweet KAR foster found his forever home. It is just too special to not share.
On December 31st 2010, KAR got a request from a lady for help with two kittens that were born in her house. She had found a stray white cat in her yard and later found out she was pregnant. KAR receives many calls from the public about pregnant stray moms and we do our best to take the kittens in, for they do not thrive outdoors in the cold, Michigan winters. But we are limited in foster homes. A KAR foster went out to asses the kittens. There were two 8 week old kittens, an all grey short hair and and all white long hair. As cute as any pair of kittens could possibly be. The lady decided to keep the mom but realized she could not afford to keep the kittens as well. When the volunteer picked up the white kitten she noticed his little heart was racing and she could feel it with her hands. This might have been due to being a scared little guy, and did not think too much of it.

Sugar's first day at his foster home.

Sugar exploring his new home and playing with his reflection.

I was the lucky volunteer who got to foster these 2 adorable kittens. One of the first things we do in the rescue is bring the kittens into a vet to have them checked out and make sure they are healthy on top of neutering/spaying, vacinations, deworming, microchipping, stool samples and feline leukemia/FIV testing. What we discovered was that racing heart was not just a nervous kitty but a very severe heart murmur. As a relatively new foster I was crushed and tears just started rolling down my face as the vet told me he would probably not live long and might need surgery! I felt like a silly little girl crying infront of the vet, but I was so sad for my new little baby.

I called my KAR mentor and told her the situation with "Sugar" who at this time we had named as his sisters name was Spice in hopes they would get adopted together (Sugar and Spice and everything nice : P ).  thankfully being involved in a wonderful organization with lots of support I was allowed to bring Sugar to a cat specialist in the area. The rescue paid for all his doctor visits which included several hundreds of dollars in check ups, and EKG's. Thankfully we also live in a wonderful community of compassionate vets that gave the organization big discounts on these tests.

With many doctor visits which required me to take some time off work to be able to make these appointments the vets could not come to a conclusion as to what was the cause of Sugars heart murmur they had a suspicion and suggested we visit a cardiologist at MSU veterinary clinic who may be able to perform a simple surgery that would fix his heart. So off we went........ with High Hopes!

Here we are waiting patiently in the waiting room at MSU vet clinic. "I am such a cutie!!!!"

The long drive to Lansing took us over an hour and Sugar was great, he was a real good traveler. At the clinic the vet decided they needed more EKG's and X rays, the tests took all day we were there till the clinic closed at 7pm on a cold wintery night in January. But that was not the hardest part of the day. The specialist could not conclude definitively where the issues were we will not go into listing all the medical terminology but we had a choice, to risk losing Sugar in surgery for more tests or to open up his little chest cavity for exploratory surgery. One of the risks was Sugar was so small he barely weighed 3lbs and the smallest needle they had for pediatric surgery might not be small enough. The second risk was his heart was already weak and he might not come out of anesthesia.

This was heartbreaking, we had thought that we could bring him here he would go in for a simple surgery and be fixed. The rescue was willing to spend another $1500 on his surgery, but I was not quite sure this was the right decision. Here was this adorable 3 month old, 3lb kitten that didn't even know he was sick. However, there was one thing the vet did know and that was that with his condition he was not going to live past 1 year.

Stay tuned to hear how Sugar overcomes the odds and finds his forever home.



This is Sadie, an Australian Cattle Dog mix, who has been looking for her forever home since last June. She is a very smart and loving dog that, at 2 1/2 years old, still acts like a puppy at times. She is much easier than a puppy though as she is fully housebroken, crate-trained (even though she can be trusted without her crate), obedient, and so much more. Sadie does enjoy playing and going for walks or runs but she also enjoys being a couch potato and a snuggle buddy. Let Sadie show you just how special she is and such an amazing companion. She does get very excited upon meeting new people and needs to work on staying calm in that situation, however, once settled in she takes to her new surroundings very well. She will do best in a fenced-in yard with room to run and play. She loves rope bones and tennis balls and especially her babies (stuffed toys).

Monday, January 23, 2012

Keep your paws crossed people! My foster mom tells me I have a family interested in meeting me! I have been waiting for a home for 6 months, could this be the one?!

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Hi there, I'm Phauna just chilling with my buddy Murphy fireside! He's found a home but I'm just beginning my search.     I came into KAR as a starving stray baby, very skinny and sick:(.   Look at me now though!   I love life and am learning how to sit for treats and looking really cute!   My foster mom is so proud of me bc I go to the door and scratch to go out for potty breaks now. Just learned that little trick in the last couple days.  I'm super smart with bouncy energy and am hoping to find some new fun friends really soon !

Hi everyone I'm Pheobe!  The first picture is me right after I came into KAR.  I was found as a stray, under a car in July of 2010.  I was horribly flea bitten and very sick.  Like many dogs, I am highly allergic to fleas, so I lost about half of my hair.  On top of that, I have a heart condition, and because I wasn't on any medication, I was coughing almost nonstop.  The second picture is me today.  As you can see I look much prettier!  Now that I'm on medication for my heart condition, I rarely cough.  I'm very happy in my foster home, but I would really love to find a home of my own.  I've been patiently waiting for a year and a half, and with a new year, I'm hoping for a forever home!

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Kisses from Trudy this morning! My foster mom and I are out practicing sit, stay, and leave it. It's mighty chilly on my paws, but at least the suns shinning!

Thursday, January 19, 2012

I'm Trudy! Glad to meet ya! You can see how happy I am now that I am in a KAR foster home! My story is a sad one. I was riding in the car with my previous owners, and all of a sudden, they rolled down the window, and threw me out of the car. Luckily, there was a nice person behind us that picked me up and took me to the local animal services. Some nice people there knew that I was a great girl, so they called KAR and here I am!

Monday, January 16, 2012

Just me Murphy the smurphy chewing on my toy. I'm living the life at my foster home after being found as a stray and ended up at animal services. Luckily my stunning good looks and shinning personality caught the eye of a KAR foster!

Hey all! Bandit here! I am a lovable huggable pit pup on my search for my forever home! I sure do love my toys and I am potty trained to! Think of all the fun we can have together!

Hi guys! I am foster dog Daisy! Look how gorgeous I look in this photo! I sure do loving being outdoors!

See how sweet I am! I love to curl up on a nice warm blanket.
Hi guys! My name is Rosie and I am a KAR foster dog. This is a blog dedicated to the fosters in Kalamazoo Animal Rescue. It is a unique look at what its like to be a foster animal, from our perspective. The ups and downs, the twists and turns, we will follow our journeys as we search for FURever homes. You will get to read  insider information on us, which will hopefully lead to you to either adopt, donate, or just enjoy the stories. Why I am writing the first post you may ask? Well I have been in KAR since August 2011. I have been a foster for about 6 months, so I have learned the ropes. I was born as an accidental litter. My moms humans found homes for all my other siblings, except for me and my sister Pretty Girl, she is a KAR foster too! So the people at KAR took us in.

In my foster home, there are 2 resident doggies here. They are not really big fans of playing with me. They are older and stick to them selves.That's OK, I just like to be next to my foster mom all the time any way. I have seen a few other foster pups come and go during my stay here. I am wondering when I will find my forever home? I always try to be the best pup I can be. But sometimes when I see something that smells good on the kitchen counter, I just cant resist sneaking a quick peek at what it is. Sometimes I even grab it, but then my foster mom usually spoils my fun, and I shamefully walk over to her and drop whatever I have in my mouth, into her lap. My foster mom says I am a low maintenance pup for the most part. I always go to the door when I have to go potty, I run right to my crate when its time for my foster mom to go to work or time to go to bed.

Well that's enough about me so far. I will give you an update soon, hopefully when I get to meet my new forever family!