Fostering change
WHEN LIVES ARE ON THE LINE, WE FOSTER PETS
What do you do when you work in a shelter and the staff names a puppy after you — and then the puppy gets sick? You take your namesake pup home and help her get well there. At least, that’s what Terran Tull did. Truth be told, Terran the puppy is just one of many dogs and cats she has fostered — because when they landed at the busy shelter, their lives were on the line.
Along with other Best Friends staff, Terran works in under-resourced shelters that want to reach no-kill and need help getting there. In August of last year, she moved from her role at the Sanctuary in Utah to Texas, where she’s working alongside staff at
Humane Society of Harlingen as their manager of operations. The temporary position is part of the Maddie’s® Shelter Embed Project in the Rio Grande Valley. Before Best Friends became involved with the shelter, their save rate was just 28%. And that’s how Terran ended up with a parade of tiny, adorable foster pets.
It started her first week on the job, when a litter of four kittens arrived at the shelter. They were too young for vaccines, so Terran brought the kittens (aptly named Fee, Fi, Fo and Fum) to her place and cared for them until they could be vaccinated. And just like that, she saved four lives. Next came a puppy, Sirius Black. “He was all paws and ears, and was about a month and a half old,” Terran
says. “I was in a meeting in the conference room when this little guy came in, and there was no kennel space for him.”
A colleague asked her to hold the puppy while they waited for kennel space to open up. But at closing time, all the kennels in the puppy room were still full. Terran and three other staff members took home puppies that day because there was nowhere else for them to go. Sirius Black stayed with Terran for a couple weeks, until he got adopted into a home of his own.
An official foster program just launched at Humane Society of Harlingen, and people are stepping up to help.
That was hardly the end of Terran’s rotating cast of foster pets, however. Seven kittens who had been separated from their mother too early arrived at the shelter in a cardboard box and weren’t eating on their own. You can guess what happened next: Terran took them home. With gentle coaxing, the kittens soon figured out the joy of eating, albeit somewhat messily.
And now, back to Terran the puppy. A litter of 14 Chihuahua-mix puppies came in, and they were ultimately all named after shelter staff. Terran says, “I noticed that one of the puppies had a large lump on her back that hadn’t been there a few hours previously. Go figure — it was the puppy they named after me.” Terran brought Terran (the puppy, in case you need prompting) to the vet, where she was treated for an abscess, and then fostered her so she could keep an eye on her and apply warm compresses to the tiny pup’s back.
Terran says, “She’s a little thing, weighing in at about two pounds, but she sure is a spitfire. She loves to gallop around, climb on my dogs and then curl up with her stuffed dinosaur to nap.” She’ll stay with Terran until she’s healed and ready for adoption.
As for Humane Society of Harlingen’s low save rate, the shelter is already making steady progress, with the save rate for some months now topping 60%. Fostering as an alternative to killing pets to make space or for treatable medical conditions is a key part of it. An official foster program just launched at Humane Society of Harlingen, and people are stepping up to help. Each person who signs up means more pets will be saved. Now that’s the way to foster real, meaningful change. And who knows? When you foster, you just may end up with a pet who shares your name.
» To save lives near you, sign up to foster pets: bestfriends.org/fostering