Clipper Arrives and Leaves

In January, we agreed to volunteer for Dogs with Wings Assistance Dog Society by providing temporary accommodations to their dogs while their foster families were away. The time commitment we agreed to was 4-7 days every couple of months with a maximum 2-week commitment once a year. Towards the end of March, I received a phone call from the DWW (Dogs with Wings) Puppy Coordinator asking if we could board an 8-week old puppy for about a week, as they didn't quite have enough foster puppy raising homes in place for a litter of 6-black Lab puppies arriving from Nova Scotia on April 7. I was ecstatic about the opportunity and agreed immediately.

Greg and I met Elisa (Dogs with Wings Director of Training) at the Edmonton International Airport at the Air Canada Cargo Terminal at 11:20pm on April 7 to meet the much anticipated litter. An Air Canada employee wheeled out two kennels with three excited, tiny balls of fur in each, only 15 minutes after we arrived. CTV News was invited as well so that Elisa could give an interview about the urgent need for Puppy Foster Homes.

We were given a little female to take home and after introducing her to the yard, home and of course, Bentley, we finally got to bed at 1:30am. We were surprised at how quickly we had forgotten how exhausting having a puppy was as I was woken at 3:00am for a pee break, and by 4:30am as she had decided she had had enough sleep. Later that morning I received a phone call with her name - "Clipper". All of the pups had been given names that are associated with Nova Scotia. Clipper is the name of a ship from there.

The following morning, Elisa phoned to say a foster home had been found for her and by 12:30pm, I was saying good bye to Clipper as I took her back to Dogs with Wings and introduced her to her Foster Dad, John. Having her come and go so quickly was a whirl wind and I hadn't expected the feelings that came and lingered for the next 8-days. They led me to seriously contemplating raising a Foster Pup of our own, as I knew there were at least 3 more pups who still needed placing. Raising a foster puppy is a 24-hour, 7-day a week, 12-14 month HUGE volunteer commitment and since I hadn't been able to work due to the arthritis I had been managing for the last year and a half, I didn't think I could actually raise a puppy that demanded so much of me. After clipper was gone, I kept coming back to reasons of how I could do it and how fulfilling and rewarding it would be for me to raise and be a part of such a special gift for someone whose life would be changed at the end of the two-year training program.